1.) Apple, along with their aquisition of Fingerworks, has been a pioneer of such multi-touch technology for many years. HP's implementation is more about gimmick, while Apple's is more about doing something useful. There is a big difference, which will be apparent once the tablet is released. Let's not kid ourselves: the only reason we haven't seen this sooner on Macs is because they wanted it on the tablet first. It has been in the works for a long time. And for what it's worth, there have been touch screens going back much further than HP's effort. Companies have only begun using them again recently because of Apple's successful use of the technology in the iPhone platform.
2.) Apple hires these employees known as industrial engineers. You see, their job is to design something that is beautiful and usuable. I can assure you that you're not the first one bright enough to take into consideration the concerns of using a capacitive touch screen on such a large scale. If they make something that is crap, Steve Jobs will give them hell until it works, and we won't see it for sale a day before that happens. Apple has changed the way people interact with computers before, from the mouse, to the click-wheel, to the multi-touch iPhone interface. I don't see how they couldn't do something similar with a desktop. Especially since going into the future, that seems like the easiest and most natural way to interact with a computer. Minority Report, Star Trek, Avatar? The future begins 2010.
Ok, now on to the tablet:
https://www.macrumors.com/2009/11/19/apple-tablet-delayed-with-oled-model-planned-3g-possible/
This new report states 9.7" screen, and the old report above states the 9.7" screen is OLED. Could this be confirmation of OLED in the tablet? If so, I hope that all the outdoor viewing issues have been resolved. I also hope that it costs much less than $2000. I don't see many people buying at that price. I'm sure Apple knows that already, but then does a lower price pretty much guarantee a cheap OLED panel? Which means poor outdoor viewing. All of this nonsense leads me to believe that the tablet won't have OLED. I also don't see Apple fragmenting their tablet device into regular and pro versions this early in the game. Could it happen a couple years down the road? Sure, but not this soon. I'm expecting standard LCD. They would need magic OLED panels to make it a decent price that is viewable outdoors.