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Synaptics Working On Advanced Touchscreen For Phones
angry tapir writes "Touch specialist Synaptics is working on technologies that will allow touchscreens to mimic the feel of a physical keypad, in order to make smartphones easier to use, according to company technology strategist Andrew Hsu. The goal is to build a touchscreen with the tactile feedback of a keypad. Users should be able run their fingers over virtual keys and get the same sensation as a mechanical keypad gives, allowing them to feel where the buttons are, and then activate them by pushing down a little bit harder, according to Hsu."
... improve their shitty trackpads first.
Apple will quickly patent and lock this up so no one else can use it unless they pay up in about... 5... 4... 3...
... years ago with the Blackberry Storm, and yet the vast majority of us are still using flat, unfeeling touchscreens and Research In Motion is struggling to stay relevant in the mobile device business.
I'm not sure consumers really care about how the screen feels, and they may even be distracted by such a change.
Forgive me, someone had to say it.
Everyone just switch to swype already and forget about needing to "feel" the keys on your phone.
I could see this being useful on a tablet, but a phone keyboard is much too small to make regular typing an efficient way to type anyways.
... Slider phones! ZOMG, a hardware keyboard on a PHONE?!
On devices I need physical keyboard sensation, I have a physical keyboard. On devices with touchscreens, I have workflows that eliminate the need to type. And ideally, I want to drive them all from my brain implant. So, for me, this is a waste of precious R&D resources in the wrong direction.
I kind of wonder how it'll work when you rotate the phone, or is it going to have keyboards in 3 places on the phone?
I think that would actually make the problem worse.
Article says something about some type of actuator, which probably could solve this problem, but how much thickness is this going to add to the screen? Touch screens aren't real physical keyboards, and never will be. If anything this tech that they're researching could cause more problems than it solves.
Personally, for me, having the phone vibrate when you press a key is enough. At least you know when you've pressed it. One of the things I hated about my old iPhone was its lack of feedback.
You know, I never look at my keyboard. Every time I put my hands on it I have to hunt for the raised bumps on F and J in the home row. This tactile feedback is useful and necessary but imprecise, because all the other keys are tactilely identical. Translating both hands up/down/left/right feels identical, except for the F and J bumps. Why haven't we started making (physical) keyboards with braille on every key? I imagine the tactile feedback, even for sighted people, would allow for much faster input and transitions (e.g. keyboard->mouse->keyboard). Hell, I bet you could even train yourself to type with your hands in the "wrong" position because you'd recognize the braille instead. Maybe a blind user can chime in on this...
1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
Is that really needed? Yeah, nostalgic people of the mechanical keyboard are bitching about touch screen now, but every demonstrations I've seen seems to show that there is no real drawback to it. Fastest texter in competitions now use the swipe/type keyboards, that TV show where the guy was texting in the passenger seat of a car going around a race track, he had better result with an iPhone then a Berry, etc.
Waste of resources...
And it's the reason I won't switch to an iPhone. With the Blackberry Storm, RIM simply put a microswitch behind the keyboard and called it tactile feedback. The fact that they did that leads me to believe that either they didn't understand the basic mechanics of what they were trying to accomplish or that it was some marketing genius who came up with the idea to try to steal some mindshare away from the iPhone, even though there was no realistic way to make it happen at the time.
What I would like is something that tells my finger that it's right above the button i need to press. If you look at a traditional Blackberry Bold or Torch keyboard, it has subtly raised ridges and even a slight tilt to each key, designed to provide feedback to your thumbs about exactly where to press down to hit each key accurately. If I'm going to use an on-screen keyboard to hit keys one by one, that's what tactile feedback needs to emulate for it to work for me. I know there are other input techniques out there like swype, but I'm mostly just talking about the traditional onscreen keyboard implementations found on iPhone and other devices.
Today a lawsuit has been filed against Synaptic by Apple for violating several of Apple's patents coving pretty much anything to do with touch screens, more news at 23:00.
Ferrofluid touch interface
Touch interface that uses Ferrofluids to provides tactile feedback
http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Ferrofluid_20touch_20interface
Air-Driven Touch Interface
Using a mesh of air valves to provide a tactile interface
http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Air-Driven_20Touch_20Interface
Liquid Interfaces - A Malleable, Transient, Direct-Touch Interface
http://www.mendeley.com/research/liquid-interfaces-malleable-transient-directtouch-interface-2/#page-1
Currently I'm using the HTC Desire Z, with an expanded 3500mah battery, the thing is about 3x the thickness of anything apple have ever put out, but you couldn't even tempt me to give up a physical keyboard and a good few days battery life for one of these touchscreen-only phones. How the hell does anyone play emulators with a touchscreen?
How many people who should be making advancements that, you know, actually arent stupid? I mean these sorta things arent easy, and theyre useful, but that doesnt mean they aren't stupid and pointless and temptng educated scientists away from more important matters to the replication of consumer goods. ...Actually, I had more to say, but I got this sinking feeling in my stomach after writing that. I suddenly became very depressed.
To me, the most useful-sounding application of this tech would be the ability to differentiate between click and hover. I only recently started using a multitouch smartphone (HTC Desire), and the thing I miss the most is the ability to hover over a widget to get the tool-tip popup to tell me what it's for.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC