The ergonomics of the guitar are the main reason I don't play much anymore. I hit a roadblock where the amount of practice required to improve further wasn't really worth the physical discomfort. For example barre chords just push my fingers past their limits to stretch. No matter how many hours I practice them I can't make the ergonomics work. For other things that I've gotten pretty good at there's still some general ergonomic problems of sitting and repeating the same motions over and over. I fully understand the pain/gain required to improve but for a hobbyist such as myself it's hard to justify it past a certain point.
What I'd really like to see is Fender or some other company develop something like a SmartGuitar. I feel like there's a lot of potential to improve the ergonomics, accessibility and functionality if the strings were replaced with a multi-touch input surface with haptic feedback. Maybe the pick could be replaced with an input device that included an accelerometer, pressure sensitivity, and haptic feedback. On the software side the possibilities are endless. The multi-touch input could be 'auto-corrected' to make the fingering of complex chords more forgiving.
What I'd really like to see is Fender or some other company develop something like a SmartGuitar. I feel like there's a lot of potential to improve the ergonomics, accessibility and functionality if the strings were replaced with a multi-touch input surface with haptic feedback. Maybe the pick could be replaced with an input device that included an accelerometer, pressure sensitivity, and haptic feedback. On the software side the possibilities are endless. The multi-touch input could be 'auto-corrected' to make the fingering of complex chords more forgiving.