Slashdot Mirror
MacBooks to Feature iPhone's Multi-Touch?
Gadgets Lover writes "According to CrunchGear's 'trusted source' that the upcoming MacBooks which are expected to be released around October will support the iPhone's multi-touch technology built into their touchpads.
The feature will be built into the touchpads, allowing you to navigate through your notebook's files, applications, etc. the same way you can on the iPhone. (Yes, I know you can already scroll with them, that's nothing new. I'm talking about all the other finger gestures that can be done on the iPhone's screen)
On June 20th, CrunchGear reported, "The upcoming MacBooks will be about half the thickness of current models (which would be quite the feat) and they'll be made from new plastics/materials"."
... the Mactablet? I need a decent tablet, and Apple seems to be lining itself up for the ideal position to release one in. Decent touchpads, thin computers... logical, no?
Could not open
I have the last revision of the MacBook Pros that just came out. It's a great little laptop. It wouldn't surprise me too much if they did have multi-touch trackpads in the new Macs. It wouldn't surprise me if it was in mine and could be added with a software update. After all, they've supposed detecting when there are two fingers for a while, how much harder can it be to detect the stretching and squeezing motions? Apple has silently updated things before. For example, the cameras in the latest MacBook Pros are 1.3MP instead of 0.3MP. It's not exposed in software, but it's there.
The 1/2 the thickness thing? Never. Don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE to see that. That would be amazing. But I just don't think it's really possible with the MacBooks. Now if you got rid of the hard drive and optical driver, you'd have a better shot... but I'd still peg this as very unlikely.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
They said trackpads, which would be a pretty good compromise actually. Wouldn't have to move your hands far from the keyboard.
Would make more sense if the Finder CoverFlow feature allowed touching and dragging the images rather than requiring a scrollbar (the way it is in iTunes now). It could be a usability improvement to allow that sort of scrolling in other documents, like webpages.
If this is coming, then the changes are in Leopard now. Maybe some WWDC attendees know the answer.
I just looked at the new Finder movie at Apple, and it's got a lot of tiny buttons everywhere for manipulating the view. I'd have to file this rumor in the doubtful category.
Given that the current touchpads already have limited capabilities to sense the placement of multiple fingertips, Apple could probably implement some of the technology in Leopard and only release it in the final build. It would certainly be a great way to get a lot of free press.
She just plain doesn't want to switch, and there's no rational basis for her decision. As you've pointed out, at this point in time she is looking more for convenient rationalizations for not switching, "leaning curve" being one of the great excuses.
This is a common thing among people. They'd rather cling to outmoded ideas or irrational opinions to which they're already married because switching would be admitting they're "wrong," a terrifying prospect in modern day society, as the smallest admission of imperfection is blood in the water for the egotistical social sharks that populate our wars.
Basically, don't hold out much hope for her ever switching, as now that ego is involved she's incredibly unlikely to make any concessions.
The Synaptics touchpads used on practically all notebook computers already support multi-touch features. These just have to be appropriately configured with software.
For example, using the Xorg drivers and GTK configuration applet gsynaptics, you can set up a touchpad to do different actions based on double-tapping, triple-tapping, scrolling via linear and circular dragging, etc.
So if Apple figures out how to make an intuitive user interface out of touchpad motions, that's pretty cool, and other operating systems should be able to adopt similar features quickly!
My bicyles
Apple had a "Town hall" meeting with all employees on Thursday to kick off this iPhone thing. Finally, we got at least some confirmation that Apple is doing stuff with the macs again as Steve said, "The first leg is the Mac business, which Steve addressed by saying that they have the "best Macs" in the new product pipeline ever right now, and that the stuff coming out in the next year is "off the charts."
So if this is true(hard to believe the half size thing, but..) we should be seeing them soon I would wager. Though I doubt the macbooks would get a feature that their pro bretheren do not have first...
Monstar L
gestures that can be done on the iPhone's screen) On June 20th, CrunchGear reported, "The upcoming MacBooks will be about half the thickness of current models (which would be quite the feat) and they'll be made from new plastics/materials"."
Hopefully they'll be more serviceable, too. Personal best for disassembling a G4 iBook to get to the hard drive? 45 minutes, and that was after doing it three times. The screw count is staggering; one heat shield had TWELVE screws. Most of the screws lack threadlocker (or it isn't strong enough) and the screws are so loose they are almost ready to fall out after 3 years of daily use.
With IBM/Lenovo and Dell laptops (and probably many others), the drive can be accessed with one or two screws and they slide out of the chassis, even on their smallest+thinnest models. Why can't Apple do the same, especially given how Apple continues to supply mostly Toshiba drives, which have the highest failure rates of laptop drives? Even setting aside drive-manufacturer failure rates, drives are the most failure-prone components in any computer (well, save video cables and screen hinges, again in Powerbooks and iBooks.) I've never seen an Airport card or memory fail, yet they're the easiest to get to on almost any Apple laptop.
Please help metamoderate.
I am almost sure that the new LED backlit LCD display will the be thinning factor. Apple is rumored buying them in asia.
better still - will the new macbooks have the Santa Rosa platform that is known to consume less power and generate less heat? and will the screens be LED like the Pros? multitouch is cool and all but is a very minor upgrade, as has always been the case with MacBooks. some love for Cinderella too, please!
OT, is it just me or am I seeing more Apple stuff being leaked out pre-release? whatever happened to the ultra-secret keep-it-under--wraps-until-very-last-minute Apple obsession?
My sig has been answered.
I wonder if Apple will move the CPU and associated bridge to the top half of the laptop, so heat vents up and out the top, a la the iMac. That might drop the size by dropping a relatively big fan wheel, but I don't think there can be much more of a drop in thickness while still including an optical drive and all the necessary ports to the outside world.
These are some of the things molecules do...... given 4 billion years -Carl Sagan
Someone mentioned that people's desks aren't set up right at the moment, and they are right. 95% of situations with current computers aren't set up in a way that a touchscreen would be ergonomically sound. Reaching out in front of you, reaching across you, etc... I think that making the trackpad to be more useful is probably for the best, but screen would be only for occasional use i think.
Tibbon
tibbon.com
I loved what multi-touch does for iPhone multi-media management. But the most difficult thing on the iPhone is typing text. This is less of an issue when the display reaches six inches or so.
The 17" could get 2.5mm thinner. They could use the 9.5mm optical drive from the 15" models. Since the 17" has enough room for the optical drive to fit completely under the right palm rest, it doesn't have to fit under the keyboard like it does on the 15".
But the 17" is already too flexible... to make a 21mm thick 17" model work you'd almost have to have new case materials.
I think you're right, though, that the big gains will come from flat solid state HDs. I don't know how they'll deal with the optical drive issue in the models (all but the rumored MBP subnotebook) that need an optical drive.
In any case, it's time for new MBP form factors. The Al enclosure has to be one of the all-time best notebook designs -- it's still more functional and useful than most others -- but, for crying out loud, the 17" version was introduced in early 2003, and hasn't appreciably changed since!
In response to this story, I had a look at the synaptics driver in Linux.
According to my dmesg output, the touchpad on my HP does indeed have the flag set for "SYN_CAP_MULTIFINGER", which I assume means it can report the positions of multiple touches.
Running "synclient -m 10" however reports a constant "0000000" under the "multi" field.
Anyone know how to properly access the multitouch data provided by the Linux synaptics driver?
How about a Mac Mini revision where it's whole top side is a multi-touch tablet? That would be very cool. Ergonomically, it would have to be no more than 1.5cm thick so there'd be no room for an optical drive, hard disk, CPU, etc - yet another opportunity for Apple to display their typical elegant minimalism!
--- Yx3 = Delilah ---
I'm using one of the new Santa Rosa's, provided you're willing to spend a bit more power and constantly run the fans at 3000 rpms (rather than the 2000 it stays at by default until the CPU starts getting REALLY hot) it stays quite cool.