Do You Really Want a Touch-Screen Notebook Computer?

I'll admit it, one of my pet peeves is going to my portable computer, opening it up, and finding somebody's fingerprints all over my screen. I have at times found myself telling people, "Please point, don't touch", when they're drawing my attention to a detail displayed on my computer monitor. When I have to sit and stare at a screen, I want it to be nice and clean. And I'm far from a "neat freak".

The idea of touch screens on portable computers is interesting. I can see how some of the elements of the iPad interface would translate well to a portable computer, or even a desktop computer. But even with an iPad, sometimes you move to a new location, experience a shift in the lighting, or find that something is stuck to its surface and... it's cleaning time! I suspect that the few times I would want to use a touch-screen interface on a fully featured portable or desktop computer would be vastly outnumbered by the number of times I would find myself wishing for a clean screen, and that in most of those occasions I can do just fine with a mouse or trackpad.

Perhaps the concept will work better on a computer that's more of a tablet than a portable, an iPad-plus. Microsoft appears to believe so. But I'm presently leaning toward Steve Jobs-style skepticism that, once the novelty wears off, people will get much use out of touch screens on their regular computers.