An interesting trend is emerging: the downward percolation (can you say that?) of the stylus/touchscreen to mid-range devices. (I define mid-range as $75-$150.) While the consumer electronics business has always had a steady trickle-down of features from high-end to mid-range to low-end, touchscreen devices never made that migration. The assumption was that touchscreen features were too expensive / bulky / overwhelming to succeed in the basic / fashion-conscious / mass-consumer markets.

The frenzy over the iPhone has changed all that. (How much impact has the iPhone had on industry attitudes to touchscreen interfaces? I attended more than one meeting last Spring in which a participant started a sentence with, “Since January 8th…” — i.e., since the iPhone marketing launch. That was before the product was even released in June.)

Of course, Apple were not the first to realize the power of the touchscreen. They just executed so well that no one could afford to ignore direct input anymore. The market response with “iPhone killers” (many of which were planned for release well before the iPhone was announced, of course) is only the beginning.

Take a look at Palm’s Centro:

The higher Centro sales, though, are another case of good news/bad news. It’s great the the Centro is more popular than even Palm had expected, but its low cost (and thus low margin) must sting a little. [via Treo Central]

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Over the past 18 months, almost every major cell phone manufacturer has come out with a product to address this market. RIM introduced the BlackBerry Pearl, a slimmer version of its BlackBerry device with an abbreviated QWERTY keyboard for typing. Motorola came out with the Q, and Samsung introduced the BlackJack.

But up to this point, price has been a major barrier to truly penetrating the consumer market. Most “consumer”-oriented smart phones have still been initially priced above $300. The iPhone retailed initially for $500 and $600. Prices are starting to come down, but experts say the hefty price tag of these devices has prevented them from reaching the mass market. [via ZDNet]

Mid-range device touchscreen input is not just a fluke, it’s the (overdue) future. I’ll go further, though: I’ve been predicting for over a year now that touchscreens will show up on low-end phones, too, in the next 3 years.

Never mind One Laptop Per Child… the one computer that is entering every single home in the developing world is the cell phone. The cell phone is where illiterate women and children will learn to read (a pet project / dream of mine). The cell phone is where contacts, photos, correspondence, business and banking will not only originate, but be archived. To me, the trickle-down of expanded interaction and handwriting input is blazingly obvious. (Of course, I expect to see those phones enabled by Power2B’s technology, but that’s another story!)

You heard it here first.