I guess it is possible that customers - the ones that they asked anyway - were also caught up in the touchscreen hype. There was a lot of hype in the first few years of iPhone and iPad.
Oh yes, there was an enormous hype. Things like tablets are going to displace all PC-type computers and such. I like to point out this article as an example of the mindless enthusiasm - I was rolling my eyes very hard at the time: https://www.techeblog.com/worlds-first-ipad-dj/