The other day Windows 7 engineering lead Steven Sinofsky blogged about how the Windows 7 team is getting close to locking down their code further as they approach Release Candidate 1 (RC1). There’s no question that this is a good step for Windows 7. However, for multi-touch, there are still some important loose ends. For instance, the most widely available multi-touch device for Tablet PCs, the N-Trig DuoSense (available on the Dell Latitude Tablet PC and the HP Tx2z) still does not have a fully functioning driver for it in that it does not support the pen. It’s touch only.
So the question has to be asked: Has N-Trig not released pen support in their Windows 7 multi-touch driver yet, because, well, it’s a multi-touch driver and they aren’t planning to support the pen at all for Windows 7?
I don’t think so, but this thought has been percolating more and more in my head as time goes on and we haven’t seen any pen support in the N-Trig driver.
From a development standpoint, I can see where N-Trig is trying to do one thing at a time here and get the multi-touch support right and then add back in pen support. Makes sense. However, because it’s taken so long up to this point, I’m wondering if something else is going on. Maybe this is just wasteful nervous energy, but I can’t help it.
I wonder: Is there a hardware reason that the pen support hasn’t been included in the Windows 7 driver? Could it be that N-Trig is going to need to update their hardware for Windows 7? Is there an issue with the mulit-touch driver model that Windows 7 uses? At CES there was some talk that Toshiba’s forthcoming multi-touch Tablet PC will be multi-touch only and won’t support the pen; is this correct? Is this why we haven’t seen pen support in their Windows driver? Might N-Trig be working on this driver for their next customer, Toshiba and not the broader Windows 7 community?
Again, these are just things I’ve been wondering about. I don’t–or at least I expect–that none of them are accurate. But I’m developing a plan B. Just in case.
My eyes are on the next version of the N-Trig driver. As N-Trig iterates its development of the multi-touch driver it’s about time to fold back in or enable pen support. If we don’t see this happening, I’m going to predict we won’t see pen support for Windows 7 launch. I could be wrong, but that’s my guess.
If this happens, I’m further guessing I might need to refresh hardware. That wouldn’t be unusual with new features in Windows that require hardware support. (Note: N-Trig can still claim multi-touch and pen support using their alternative driver–just not the Windows 7 specific driver that supports multi-touch. With so many enterprise customer using XP and possibly Vista and few planning immediate upgrades to Windows 7, I can see where N-Trig’s current custom DuoSense drivers are all that they think might be needed for now. Windows 7 support is something the bulk of their enterprise customers might not need for another year or so. N-Trig can just argue that they use the Vista drivers for now. What’s the big deal, they might argue, if true Windows 7 multi-touch isn’t supported and there’s so little software for it? And finally, there’s so much consumer confusion judging from forum posts between N-Trig’s multi-touch driver and the Windows 7 multi-touch driver, that I think all this works to N-Trig’s favor in taking its time to write a Windows 7 driver. Customers just don’t need the new Windows 7 driver yet. It’s just Windows 7 beta testers, early adopters, and developers that do 🙂 )
Here’s the good part: I think N-Trig is taking their time. Notice, for instance, that there are still some significant pen and digitizer issues even with their XP and Vista drivers that they haven’t fixed yet. So a go slow approach for Windows 7 wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for them. And don’t forget, this is a DuoSense device, so this alone implies both pen and touch support. Here’s to hoping that this is just what’s going on.