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."

Comments

And the best part...

[Anarchysoft]

...is that calls from the doctor can restart your pacemaker.

Excellent ...

[WrongSizeGlass]

... now I'll own an iPod that I can scratch it to sh!t on two sides.

How small do we need?

[identity0]

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.

ALL?

[Jerry Rivers]

"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.

Re:ALL?

[vux984]

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.

Re:ALL?

[26199]

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.

Too small for a touchscreen, so it uses a panel?

[Tackhead]

No telepathic UI. Less screen space than a Nano. Lame.

Prediction: All touch

[Chairboy]

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'.

Re:Prediction: All touch

[mblase]

"Blah blah greasy fingerprints on monitors" Yeah, anyone with half a brain can think of 10 reasons why this is dumb

The biggest reason, of course, is cost. The bigger the touch screen, the faster its cost goes up.

On the other hand, I can see the value of a small touchscreen under the actual display for lesser functions, like iTunes controls or Dashboard widgets.

Re:Prediction: All touch

[prockcore]

They did it w/ USB. They did it with mice.

But they failed with ADB, NuBus, Firewire, ADC, and PCI-X to name a few. Apple has far more misses than hits when it comes to introducing the "new standard".

Re:Prediction: All touch

[catch23]

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.

Re:Prediction: All touch

[Telvin_3d]

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.

Meh

[Judinous]

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.

How about for their freaking laptops?!?!

[aichpvee]

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.

Re:full screen nano?

[HTTP Error 403 403.9]

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.

Do you look at hand when you move your mouse?