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iPod/iPhone Nano With Touch Panel?
Staska writes "A new Apple patent filing shows new directions for Apple's touch interface design. For smaller devices like iPod Nano, touchscreen interface may not be feasible — the screen is just too small for touch operation. According to the patent, Apple can still make full screen iPods and put a touch panel on the backside of the device with transparent controls on the front screen. In addition to iPod, patent filing also describes controls for the phone. ZDNet even thinks that this patent can hint about future touch interfaces for all Apple products."
...is that calls from the doctor can restart your pacemaker.
Hax-fu?
No one else can be as innovative as Apple.. Oh, wait...
Belief is the currency of delusion.
... now I'll own an iPod that I can scratch it to sh!t on two sides.
Really, how small do we need to make these things, anyways? Even in Japan, where mini=cool, there's a limit to how small phones get. Maybe it's the battery requirements, but I think that past a certain point, the "cool" factor gets outweighed by the fact that you can't show off a device you can't see. The current nano iPods are smaller than any phone I've seen, and I wonder just how many people actually want something that size.
"ZDNet even thinks that this patent can hint about future touch interfaces for all Apple products."
Somehow I just don't see the practicality of having a high-end workstation with a touch screen. All consumer products maybe, but not professionals products.
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
No telepathic UI. Less screen space than a Nano. Lame.
So it's like a touchpad, where position is relative rather than absolute, and you need a way to indicate a mouseclick other than just touching the surface. How will clicks be implemented then? A double-tap?
Either way, kudos for putting effort into trying to adapt laptop and desktop concepts to a handheld device.
Prediction: Within a year, all Apple products with displays will have multi-touch. Laptops, external monitors, iPods, the whole shebang. Sure, most people won't use it all in the beginning. The UIs we have today aren't set up for it, neither are our office spaces. But Apple will bet the farm and just make is a Standard Feature on the bet that while the demand doesn't exist NOW, it'll appear out of whole cloth once it's so ubiquitous.
They did it w/ USB. They did it with mice.
"Blah blah greasy fingerprints on monitors" Yeah, anyone with half a brain can think of 10 reasons why this is dumb. But it's the crazy guy in the back of the auditorium who's going to figure out how to get rich off of it, and in doing so will make the standard transition from 'crazy wacked out goofball' to 'eccentric visionary'.
Wonder if they'll ever get around to a nice tablet MacBook type device, or if the shadow of Newton haunts them still...
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
Why not make a full screen iPod or iPhone Nano, and put an operational touchpanel on the back side?
Hmm. I don't like the idea of a screen on the front while you manipulate a scroll wheel on the back, out of your sight. It's novel, but it breaks so many ergonomic principles I wouldn't know where to begin.
Touch screens are nice and all, but personally I like the current interface. I enjoy being able to reach into my pocket while jogging and change songs without having to stop, pull the thing out, and look at the screen.
So how long until we get a tablet mac? And maybe they could try living up to their billing as the "artist's" computer by actually giving us the features we need? Like maybe a decent resolution and tilt/pressure sensitivity equal to a stand-alone tablet!??!
Yes I know it's a completely different tech and apple doesn't actually care about artists, but it'd be a whole lot more useful than a phone with no tactile feedback that will be even harder to use while driving a car, drinking your coffee, and smoking a cigarette at the same time.
The Farewell Tour II
I've read about this a few times this week and what instantly came into my mind is that you would no longer be able to control it with one hand. This is a major thing for me and I imagine many other people, which is why I don't think they'll use this.
... as the iTouchMyself
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
Reading only the article summary and not the actual patent application, it appears that the patent would cover the Tartus, since clearly the back of this iPod must be bigger than the front. If the front was big enough for the touch screen interface it would be on the front, after all. Putting it on the back doesn't make it bigger unless this is the "iPod Tartus".
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
"...put a touch panel on the backside of the device..."
How did this get that far up the feature priority list?
Is there really market demand for touching its backside?
Oh wait, I forgot..."porn drives all advances in digital media."
Apple patents putting a touchpad and a screen on a single device! What will they think of next?
iPod Nano + Touchscreen = Most frustrating experience ever. "ARGH, I tried to press play but deleted my entire library. Come on, my finger covers half the screen."
Excuse me while I gather the virgin sacrifice and assemble the pentagram required to solve your problem
Touch screens are no good on a video device. I don't think its a bad idea with an mp3 player or even a phone(if your not watching videos) but to constantly have finger prints all over your screen when you want to watch it is kind of a pain. I was looking at the artical and from what I gather they are sugesting to put the touch screen on the back kind of like a track pad on a laptop. That I think is the way to go on a media player like the ipod video. No fingers need to touch and greese up the screen and you still get the ease of use of the touch pad.
I could be interpreting this wrong though.
I do not like how the iphone relies on a touch screen that plays video it is a big turn off to me. I guess cleaning it all the time would fix it but it seems there has to be anouther solution.
l2 not post AC. Mods usually don't bother with AC shit, unless it's an up-mod for a quality comment.
Firewire is used in a modified version for the data bus of the F-22 Raptor, the most advanced fighter currently used. And we all know thats never failed.
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I already own a fully touch screen PMP.. the Iaudio Cowon D2. 4gb of built in memory SDHC slot music, movies, photos, text, FM radio, microphone 52 hours music playback, 10 hours video on 1 charge drag and drop file trasnferring regular firmware updates price (with 8gb SDHC card): roughly $260
1) Sell touch screens with grease on it
2) Sell detergents to wash the grease out
3) Profit
wax on ... wax off
i must be like.. the ONLY person to treasure their ipod for causal reading. Am i THAT much different?
Look, if they put a full vertical width screen on a nano and let me just scroll the page with my finger.. We've replaced the book, use it in both orientations, fits in your jeans change pocket, make it so it can hold more (currently limited by the number of "notes" it can carry to about 8 full size books..) never loses your place.
Heaven! Of course, i already use the nano to read, so my eyesight must be pretty good.. but c'mon, it could be great!
and easy enough to do, all things considered with how they already have the device laid out, more or less.
I know, bigger screen == less battery life, but somethin' 'll give.
CS majors know the time/space tradeoff, but they never get taught the 3rd, crucial, tradeoff of the set: comprehension!
Failure my arse - tell it to my audio interface, my scanner, my external HD, my DV cam, my neighbors Sony notebook, my digital camera...
~!J!
See, I have 5 fingers on each hand, more than enough to fulfil most functions single handedly on a multitouch interface, leaving the other hand free for... whatever.
~!J!
Da Blog
FWIW, a few years back I bought an eMac instead of a Mini only because the latter did not have ADC. Apple actually got more of my money, and I kept the Cube working, so I guess that worked out for Apple in the short term. But I would have turned that first generation Mini into a media PC and bought a new one by now. The eMac is still good enough that I am waiting for Tiger before I upgrade!
I paid the going retail price for a Windows screen reader and got a free Unix computer!
Xerox developed the GUI interface, but they didn't really know its potential in computing as their narrow focus was on the copier. Apple requested and received permission from Xerox to show it to their engineers. I think Apple also paid them some sort of license. Apple then took the ideas of Xerox to develop the first Mac operating system. iPod Mp4 Guide http://www.ipod-mp4-converter.com/