Touchsmart Development Kit: On the lines of Apple's SDK

Similar to Sony Bravia's SDK, HP will be announcing the details of the Touchsmart Development Kit for its touch enabled PCs.


HP informs us that it will post the guidelines to its TouchSmart Community Web site later today. The site will also host applications for TouchSmart owners to download, with the existing discussion forum providing a means for users to comment and give feedback.

HP says the programming guidelines are meant for "experienced, professional developers with WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) and C# language proficiency," so you'll need to know your stuff before you get coding. You may also want to consider that HP is not following the iPhone/iTunes Store model, and any applications hosted on the TouchSmart Community site will be free to download. HP says that it won't block developers from hosting and charging for applications themselves, which is good news for those who may need a financial incentive to start programming.

I doubt that HP will be seeing a huge influx of freelance programmers rushing to develop applications simply because of the business model. HP would have done better to launch an app store of its own to encourage developers who are looking for a financial incentive.