Slashdot Mirror
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."
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'.
I don't see the keyboard/ mouse/ tablet/ etc going away. But why not supplant them with touch screens?
Certain activities in photoshop and illustrator would be SOO much more intuitive and easy with a touch screen. Tablets are great, but even they can't beat just drawing the curve you want right on the screen.
The more UI options the better.
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.
Wait until the power requirements do not need a physical battery in the device but somewhere on your person like your wallet that powers your clothing grid that also powers personal devices that are connected by touch to you.
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
Touchscreen is irrelevant. It's multitouch that's the big story.
Apple's multitouch technology came from Fingerworks (allegedly!) and I can tell you with great certainty that for a professional computer user, multitouch is the way to go. The Fingerworks Touchstream vastly better than the standard keyboard/mouse combination for programming; and I expect the advantages would be greater still for graphic design, CAD, etc.
It's all about 1) removing the need to alternative between keyboard/mouse -- the freedom gained is huge; 2) utilising considerable extra input bandwidth from chords, gestures, hot-switchable layouts; and 3) reducing injury and stress through zero-force typing.
It's the future -- at least, I hope so.
If both sides of the device were fully multi-touch enabled it seems like the device might be able to determine from your grip the orientation of the unit in your hand. That might allow for non-visual operation.
The folks at Apple are pretty focused on usability. I'd at least give them the chance to prove their new technologies before I write them off.
Excuse me but i think you're talking about Japan ironically, or a different place on the world with the same name (could it be?
I live here and the cellphones aren't tiny as people think (the technology nation, the anime world, or whatever) , they're *HUGE*, they like things packed with features (useless or half-baked features that could be done with better standalone devices anyway, but this is the japanese mentality) not small (at least in the cellphone world)...
Even now there's an ongoing wave of 'slim' cellphones, yes, they're ridiculously slim (to the point you ask yourself where they put the battery pack) , yet they're like a Big Foot on the front...
i'm still searching for a small cellphone that only talks to other people and has a phone book, period.
ps: as of features: my cellphone has internet/e-mail/sms/mms/3megapixel external camera/1 megapixel inside camera/a lot of buttons on the side/a screen that flips 180 degrees/..... and the thing is as thick as a brick. if you get the models with TV reception (both digital and analog) it'll still be like 3mm thicker than mine... sucks!
ps2: if you think my opinion is false, compare it with devices like sony's PS3
Wrong about the Japanese phone market. Japan doesn't care about it being small. They care about them being full of options and thin. Big screen, lots of programs, high megapixel camera, tv, mp3 player phones are all I see on the train in Tokyo, but the thing is they are thin. I mean REALLY THIN. Japan currently has the thinest flip phones in the world. I think they are DOCOMO phones. Don't feel like looking it up. The point is that thin is what I want. I want it wide and thin. Don't care about small. Learn more about countries before you spout generalizations about a community. *The opinions of a Japanese Studies Major.*
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!