Avatar, FingerWorks and MultiTouch

Judging by its massive box office takings I wasn't alone in viewing James Cameron's Avatar movie over the festive holiday. I'm happy to confess that I was blown away by it, even on second viewing. What I'm still not quite sure about is why?

The story and script are fairly predictable and whilst performances are good the characters are a little cliched. However, none of that really matters because the movie engaged me in a way that few others have. Part of this may be down to Cameron's attention to detail in creating the alien flora, fauna and language etc. and the way they've improved the facial expressions capture technology.

However, what I suspect is that on some level the 3D effect (or is it really 2D steroescopic?) has had a large part to play in the level of engagement I felt. Has James Cameron pulled off a mass delusion and transformed a good film into a real gamechanger? Certainly the movie industry is buzzing at the prospect with news of 3D re-releases of LOTR, Star Wars, etc. I also just read that the new Bond movie will be in 3D.

What I'm more interested in though is the fact that prior to Avatar's launch 3D had been doing the rounds for years without gaining any traction outside of a novely IMAX movie. Before Avatar the idea that audiences would wear some dodgy 3D goggles for more than two hours in your local multiplex was almost unthinkable. In the space of a month Avatar has changed all that. It is a real paradigm shift for the movie industry and its director has been rightly been hailed a visionary.

So what has this to do with IT. Well if we move from a visionary director to the visionary CEO of the tech world, namely Steve Jobs, what can we expect with his next release? If the tech blogs are correct it's all but certain that Apple will launch a new tablet computer at their press event later this month. Beyond the tech specs of the device there has been much speculation about what the focus for the device will be and what will be its killer app? So far none of the predicted features of the new tablet (e-Reader, Web browsing, Media Player, Video conferencing, VOIP calls, etc.) aren't already available on your average notebook. So what we're talking about here is a new form factor but the same old applications. If that the case why do I believe that the Apple tablet will succeed where Bill Gates tablet computing strategy failed.

For me the only answer can be that what will make the Apple Tablet a huge success isn't a killer app as such but it will be how the device engages the user. What I'm saying is that I think the killer app of the Apple tablet will be the the way we interact with it. It's no secret that Apple have been beavering away for years and filing patents related to multitouch technology that go far in advance to what we see today in the iPhone or MultiTouch mousepads on our Macbooks.

The recent withdrawal of the FingerWorks domain that Apple owns may provide some clues, together with speculation that iWorks, Apple's office productivity suite, has been rewritten for multitouch. Let's also consider what may be waiting around the corner for iPhone OS 4.0. If Apple get it right and somehow come up with a vocabulary of getsures then this could be the biggest breakthrough in user interaction since the arrival of the mouse.

Why? We becuase for over a hundred years the western world has interacted with keyboards adopting the QWERTY key layout. The QWERTY layout was chosen because it helped prevent mechanical typewriter keys from jamming, something I think we will have little need for today. The challenges I can think of that the QWERTY keyboard has faced in its life are:

1) the adoption of the mouse, which was a complementary not replacement technology
2) Palm's Graffiti script language for its PDA's because QWERTY was deemed unsuitable for handhelds until Blackberry came along
3) Interesting technologies like the Pulse Smartpen from Livescribe which to date are let down by poor handwriting recognition software
4) Graphics pens and tablets, which have a limited niche market
5) Voice recognition software, which to date people are reluctant to adopt as they feel self conscious talking to machines

I think we can agree that none of the above have seriously challenged the dominance of QWERTY.

So here's my big prediction for the new decade. I believe we are on the cusp of a paradigm shift that will see the way in which we interact with devices and I believe that we will get our first glimpse of this new world when Steve takes to the stage on the 26th. Whether the multitouch vocabulary announced them will kill QWERTY or complement it remains to be seen but I think the world will look a little different after the 26th. Just like the movie world does now thanks to James Cameron.