Bring in the JOY!!

I recently bought a camcorder for my sis, a Panasonic gs85. And it has got this joystick as one of the input devices on the camera. And I realised what an amazing input device joystick would make for many many devices. I'm not a gamer, so I didn't use a joystick or any similar input devices much before using this camcorder, so this is revealing to me. No need to use the touch screen, just use the joystick to go up and down the menus.

Take my favourite, television remotes as an example, there are separate buttons for channel up and channel down, page up and page down, volume up and volume down resulting in a device every one hates. Replacing it with joystick doesn't need any drastic technology changes, it should still be able to work with the same RF and IR technologies that remotes use now.

Or take any mobile devices, be it mp3 players or phones or pdas or GPS devices or digital cameras or UMPCs, most of the browsing we do on the menus are these same controls, that is up down, left and right and page down. How easy it would be to browse your menus with a joy stick. You don't even need to worry about technology as it is on device and you can keep what ever you want on these devices.

I know quite a few devices already have joystick. But still the percentage is very minimal, when compared to the number pad. I can think of many amazing things that you can do with out lifting your finger if you have the right interface. So, spread the joy.