Google has hinted that it is working on building more support and compatibility for touch interfaces. In its recent most nightly Canary build, Chrome browser has included slide-to-navigate feature which essentially enables you to go backward and forward on a page by swiping left and right.
Canary is a place where Google releases Chrome’s beta and developer versions which often features its most recent experimented functionalities.
This new feature is really very convenient and handy, but there is nothing new about it, per se. Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 apparently has similar features. Last year Google released a Metro version of Chrome for Windows 8, the browser however felt the same and didn’t justify its title much. The Pinch-to-zoom feature in the recent betas indeed confirms that Chrome wants to make things right this time.
With Microsoft, which sort of holds the authority on desktop and laptop computers releasing Windows 8, an OS designed for touch interfaces, and Google’s own Chromebook Pixel release which is also a touch screen device, although a little late to the party, but still a pretty sound choice for Google to make their browsers laced with touch responses.
It is worth mentioning here that one of the game changing personality in technology, former Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs was not in a favor of laptops with touch sensitive screen. In his words, touch screens weren’t made for vertical usage, as with time, your arms starts feeling tired. That is why they brought track pad which is placed horizontally on the laptop. The world has changed though, today most OEMs – HP, Samsung, Lenovo, Dell, Sony are making touch oriented laptops.
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