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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."

5 of 122 comments (clear)

  1. ALL? by Jerry+Rivers · · Score: 3, Informative

    "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
  2. Re:Prediction: All touch by catch23 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Yeah, but all those are hardware interfaces. User interfaces are something Apple knows a little better than hardware interfaces that usually need acceptance from other electronics manufacturing industries as well.

  3. Re:eSpace patent and the iPod Tartus by retzkek · · Score: 2, Informative

    Tartus is a city in Syria.
    TARDIS is a spacecraft/time machine (of Time Lord design) that has an interior larger than its exterior.

    Unless you know something about Syria that really should be further explored, I think you mean the latter.

  4. Re:Prediction: All touch by Telvin_3d · · Score: 5, Informative

    Anyone who thinks that Firewire is less than a success hasn't tried to use a digital video camera in the past few years. Just because it hasn't replaced USB is no reason to consider it a failure.

  5. Re:Prediction: All touch by daveschroeder · · Score: 2, Informative

    Wrong. All Macs have FireWire. There are none that don't have FireWire, and there have been none that haven't had it since Macs started shipping with FireWire. Even FireWire 800 has been added *back* to some products that didn't have it at first (e.g., original MacBook Pro). But all still had at least FireWire 400, which has been the "standard" FireWire interface for years. There is no indication that any new Macs won't continue to have FireWire, considering so much depends on FireWire (see URL below).

    For more info, see:

    http://appleintelfaq.com/#17.3

    The only Apple product to drop FireWire is the iPod, and that's because an iPod doesn't need FireWire for anything, and would only add cost, power consumption, chipsets, etc., that aren't necessary for an increasingly smaller product. (But even iPods without FireWire can even still be charged via FireWire.) (And yes, just because someone who has to be contrarian will respond, the internal iSight also doesn't use FireWire, but that's totally irrelevant, since the transport for an internal camera housed in a computer is utterly meaningless to the user. And no, AppleTV doesn't have FireWire, but it's also not a "Mac", regardless of what OS it can run.)