It’s not definitive “yes,” but an awkward “no comment” from a Google product manager that may indicate that touch capability is being built into Chrome OS.
At an event in London at Google’s headquarters attended by TechRadar, Senior Product Manager of Search Anders Sandholm “laughed nervously” in response to the question of whether Chrome OS would include multi touch capability, the technology made ubiquitous largely by Apple’s iPhone.
Sandholm went on to respond, “I can’t… I mean… right now we are targeting netbooks, that’s what we’re focused on, but I expect it to work well… we expect it to target everything up to desktop computers. Chrome OS will be built for a specific hardware setup.”
Adding touch capability to Chrome OS would position it as another operating system suitable for a tablet.
Now that so many of us are used to touch-based controls thanks to our smartphones, it makes sense that multitouch may find its way into more netbook, laptop and desktop offerings as well. Building touch into Chrome OS would position Google well to take advantage of that coming trend.