Touchscreen versus multitouch

The other day I was told that "other companies will release touchscreen devices", as if that's all the iPhone has going for it. In fact, the touchscreen is a liability which happens to be offset by other features. Competitors who only ape the touchscreen without working hard on the interface will actually end up with a less competitive device than if they stuck with a traditional keypad.

Let's be clear about the tradeoffs here. The soft keyboard is harder to type on because it provides no tactile feedback. But by making the device into one big screen, video and applications can be designed differently and better. To further tip the scales, Apple has made the keyboard guess what you meant to type so when you fat finger a response, the phone can prevent you from having to correct.

It's doing it as I type this very post, in fact.

Now. Let's say a competitor launches a device with a flat screen to reap the same benefits. Video would still look great and support more codecs. Awesome. But will it connect to iTunes? Not legally.

So you have a device with no iTunes music or video and applications designed by - who? Java developers? Windows? They've had their chance to prove they can write strong applications on the phone or the desktop, and in my judgement, most can't.

So no iTunes, applications that I'm assuming won't be great, and you're still stuck with a soft keyboard. All the pain with none of the benefit.

And then there's multitouch. I don't know what patents Apple has, but if the clickwheel was never legally copied, I bet a lot of the multitouch interface will be similarly locked down.  Competitors are going to need a lot more than a touchscreen to compete with Apple.