Question: How do touch-screens work?

Michael Cook answered on 22 Jun 2012:

There are different types of touchscreen, and they work in different ways! I’ll mention two:

The iPhone uses a ‘capacitative’ touchscreen. The surface of the iPhone’s touchscreen can detect whenever something conductive touches the surface – and human bodies conduct electricity, which is why it reacts to skin! This is also why iPhone/iPads don’t work if you try and use something that doesn’t conduct electricity – for instance, in the winter I can’t change the music on my iPhone if I have my gloves on!

Another common type of touchscreen is ‘resistive’ touchscreen. They work by having two layers of electronics under the surface of the touchscreen. When you press down on the screen, the two layers are pushed together and they send a signal to the device that someone’s touched the screen. Can you tell the main difference here? It doesn’t use electrical conductivity! So these screens can be used with styluses, chopsticks, gloves – anything that presses down on it.

Hope that answered the question!