New iMac and MacBook touchscreens debut, thanks to Troll Touch
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted November 9th 2009 11:04AM
posted November 9th 2009 11:04AM
Troll Touch -- the fun little company with the unfortunate name -- have announced more of their award-winning analog resistive touch kits for 21.5-inch and 27-inch iMacs as well as unibody MacBooks. Prices for the iMac kits themselves start at $1099, or you can order new machines with the kits pre-installed starting at $2299. For laptop owners, your touchscreen kits start at $699. Not cheap at all, but you know what the song says: You've got to pay the troll's toll. Delivery slated to begin before December 1, 2009. If you've never seen a video of someone using a touchscreen, you're in for a treat -- we included one after the break. You're welcome.
See more video at our hub!
Will this get me into that boys hole, though?
It's Always Sunny WIN.
...I feel like you're saying "boy's hole", and it's clearly "soul".
Song, or no SONG?!?
It's a waste of effort and money. Now it's just like the stupid touchscreens on those desktop HP computers. Just exactly how many people are asking for touch screens outside of ATM machines or kiosk information systems? But paying more money to add a touchscreen onto an already expensive iMac is just paying too much for too little. Maybe those doctors that treat repetitive stress injuries are asking for the computer companies to make more touchscreen displays.
come one, come all to a beautiful show!
its gonna be awesome and… some other stuff
do-dee-dee-dee, do-dee-dee-dee, do-dee-dee-do-dee
some other musical stuff!
yep that's the only one normal game on a mac...
And that will make the rapi.....I mean, the sexing from behind feel more classy!
I don't think anything could have made my day more than seeing an It's Always Sunny reference on Engadget. Awesome.
I want to put Windows7 on it.
You can get a touch screen for windows 7 for far cheaper.
I want to fix your hat.
Fine. Put Windows 7 on it. Why you would think that anyone would care is beyond me but whatever floats your boat...
uhhhh....ok....
@Skeezle: best comment ever.
is that an always sunny in Philadelphia reference?
The name of the company goes well with all the engadget mac fanboy commenters.
"People who live in glass houses, ..."
How about just nobody throw stones? I mean regardless of whether or not you live in a glass house it should be unacceptable behavior.
Fez - Pot, kettle, black.
@anticrawl
unless you're trapped inside a glass house, and posses a stone... so really it should go "Only people in glass houses should throw stones, provided they are trapped in the house with a stone." ^_^
@blue_shadow714
I tend to think that standing inside a glass house while it crashes down around me would not impress Health & Safety...
Hear hear. A report about resistive screens, and nary a snarky remark from Engadget about it.
But then again, the topic is related to Apple, so...
They even mentioned it's "award winning"!
L, you took the words right out of my mouth. Well done.
Only an Apple-related product with resistive screen technology would not be trashed on this site.
Well, it's resistive and Engadget has numerous times said that resistive sucks.
Conclusion: this product sucks and Troll Touch is doomed. iPhone ftw.
Well, you're unquestioning trust in what Engadget has told you numerous times says that you have no free will.
Conclusion: your predictions of product success based solely on some Engadget's articles are doomed. iNformed consumers ftw.
Can anyone say... sticky screen five times?
make it capacitive with multi-touch and I'm in
You have to pay the troll toll...
Resistive touch? Yeah, right.
Capacitive FTW.
Is it okay to say Windows 7 ripoff?
Or is the company just trolling us?
Not a Windows 7 ripoff, it can't do multi-touch. Mac guys love resistive screens so it should work out good.
Ah, a LAME ripoff.
Sure. It's a rip-off of a really dumb idea. I have absolutely nothing against touch interfaces but slapping one on top of an OS that is running applications that are designed to be used with a keyboard and mouse is just stupid. I would say this about a Mac if Apple decided to put a touch interface into the desktop OS X so this isn't an anti-Windows thing.
If you haven't noticed, multitouch equipped Windows 7 computers are available, and they don't raise the price by 50%.
It's obviously not going to replace the mouse and keyboard, but it's pretty useful for going through pictures and drawing and stuff. Especially for old people.
Native multitouch support is not available in win7, they use drivers from Synaptics like in every other Win/WinMo OS. So how is this a ripoff of anything?
and graphic designers. That's why Modbooks are a pretty successful indie mod. "slapping one on top of an OS that is running applications that are designed to be used with a keyboard and mouse is just stupid." unless you're using something like Corel Painter or Illustrator, and you don't feel like propping some random USB in to use a tablet. There's an exception to the rule sometimes.
BillG:
...
First comes the hardware then comes the software to take advantage.
Not all situations will have you throwing away your keyboard and mouse and strictly using touch. Its will be good when more applications are created for casual touch use i.e. photo viewer, widgets, multiplayer boardgames.....i don't know, use your own imagination.
Templarian - Yes, because all the devices Apple makes that have touch sensitive screens are all resistive.
Oh wait, no they aren't. They're all capacitive. So how did you determine that Mac guys love resistive screens again? Can you walk us through your thought process there? It should be pretty entertaining.
Troll Touch has been outfitting Macs with touch screens for years and years and years.
@N900
True, there are exceptions - there are applications designed for "standard" desktop operating systems that work better with a touch interface when it is supported, although these applications would not work well with the sort of touchscreen that is being added to computers today (even the Modbook does not deliver an interface as sensitive as a standalone tablet). But just think how much better EVERYTHING would be on these touch devices if absolutely everything relied on touch. As a very simple example, consider on-screen widgets like buttons, sliders, etc. All of these widgets would be sized and positioned so that they could easily be used with a finger. This is why devices like the iPhone work because when touch is the only option, everything is designed and tested for it. Until touch is the only option in Windows 7 (or whatever comes after), both in software and hardware, you are going to have situations when you'll have to change how you are interacting with your computer, be it changing from a finger to a mouse/keyboard or the other way around. Mixing this stuff together is just a really bad idea that shows very limited ambition. To quote Yoda, "Do or do not...there is no try".
And I'm sure there will be plenty of TROLLS commenting on this
1100$ for a resistive touchscreen? Seriously?
It's "award winning" resistive.
Trust me.
...it's apple.
..it's Troll Touch actually
hence, troll
consider it innovative price...