RIM made an interesting decision in introducing the SurePress screen (which allows them to kinda-sorta-simulate the feeling of pressing an actual button, rather than a touchscreen) on the original BlackBerry Storm. The idea of a touchscreen BlackBerry alone would have been enough to fuel the flamewars – throw in some crazy clicky mechanism, and it’s sure to see some resistance.
While it seems that most complaints about the SurePress screen dwindled off as people either got used to it or jumped to a different device, the controversy was apparently loud enough to reach RIM’s ears. A new video floating around shows that the SurePress functionality can be turned on and off – at least, it can on the current pre-release build. This is where we’d normally embed the video for your perusal; alas, it seems that someone is hunting down all copies of it and getting them taken down by way of copyright complaint. We’re looking for a still-working copy – let us know if you find one.
It’s so interesting of that.
The video I saw of the Storm 2 lead me to believe that its Peizo technology actually allowed the screen to be somewhat . . . flaccid? tactile? squishy? You couldn’t really tell, but it seemed that it actually combined the smoothness of a capacitive screen with the pliable surface of a resistive screen.
I saw that same video…really interesting concept! I guess a small electrical charge made the screen flexible/rubbery and no charge made it hard glass. With that said, I imagine turning on/off surepress would be easy.