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."

And the best part...

[Anarchysoft (1100393)]

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

Excellent ...

[WrongSizeGlass (838941)]

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

Re:

[WhatAmIDoingHere (742870)]

I don't know what version of the iPod you have, but mine is already scratched to shit on 6 sides.

How small do we need?

[identity0 (77976)]

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.

Re:

[Ucklak (755284)]

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.

eSpace patent and the iPod Tartus

[Gary W. Longsine (124661)]

Reading only the article summary and not the actual patent application, it appears that the patent would cover the Tartus, since clearly the back of this iPod must be bigger than the front. If the front was big enough for the touch screen interface it would be on the front, after all. Putting it on the back doesn't make it bigger unless this is the "iPod Tartus".

Re:

[retzkek (1002769)]

Tartus [wikipedia.org] is a city in Syria.
TARDIS [wikipedia.org] 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.

Re:

[Prune (557140)]

No, you cretinous imbecile. The problem with a touchscreen on the front is that the fingers cover part of the screen when you're touching it. When it's on the back, you can see the whole screen while using the touch interface. You didn't need to read the article to realize that, just basic thinking. Then again, obviously your type needs everything handed on a platter.

Re:

[soft_guy (534437)]

I would buy an iPhone the size of a current nano or even smaller. I don't see a problem with it.

ALL?

[Jerry Rivers (881171)]

"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 (928602)]

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.

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[mrchaotica (681592)]

A Wacom-style digitizer screen that you use with a special stylus (as seen on most Tablet PCs) is not the same thing as a touch screen that you use with your finger (as seen on most PDAs). The latter would be almost useless for Photoshop, especially compared to the former.

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[Jerry Rivers (881171)]

"High-end digital graphics artists have been using stuff like this for years already"

SOME high-end digital graphics artists may have been have using stuff SOMEWHAT like this for years. Many, maybe even MOST others, like me, have NOT been using tablets and the like at all. I don't sit at a workstation all day doodling on a touch pad. I work on dozens of jobs in a high end environment where efficiency and quality are as important as design and creativity. There are tens of thousands of technicians and artis

Re:

[WhatAmIDoingHere (742870)]

Wow. You need to relax, dude. I'm pretty sure he wasn't insulting your mother, since that's the only thing that should cause you to flip out like that.

Also, I believe it was implied that it was going to be all portable Apple products.

Re:

[Jerry Rivers (881171)]

What flipping out? I'm being assertive, there is a difference.

There is no implication about portable products. TFA clearly says "all Apple product".

Though I do notice that the wording of TFA has changed slightly from when this was first posted on /.. So apparently somebody at ZDnet even had second thoughts about making such an outlandish prediction.

Re:

[WhatAmIDoingHere (742870)]

Being assertive... after flipping out.

Re:ALL?

[26199 (577806)]

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.

Re:

[Jerry Rivers (881171)]

That's right, ANY questioning of ZDnet predictions deserves a condescending, smart-ass sarcastic answer. Get a grip.

Re:

[Jerry Rivers (881171)]

"I was questioning YOUR assertion that you know what all "professionals" need."

Since you appear to have reading comprehension issues, let me quote myself:

"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."

NOWHERE does this say ANYTHING about what ALL professionals need. There is a BIG difference between what I wrote and what you wrongly claim I meant. And since you apparently have forgotten what this

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

[Tackhead (54550)]

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

And in Australia, they're planning to rebrand it..

[rockout (1039072)]

... as the iTouchMyself

Touchpad

[interiot (50685)]

So it's like a touchpad, where position is relative rather than absolute, and you need a way to indicate a mouseclick other than just touching the surface. How will clicks be implemented then? A double-tap?

Either way, kudos for putting effort into trying to adapt laptop and desktop concepts to a handheld device.

Re:

[peragrin (659227)]

clicks are an increase in pressure. Since reading the patent, I have played with my Motorola L2, moving my finger on the back in various circular patterns and pressure settings.

The Ipod nano is roughly the same size. Holding my hands on the edges to prevent smudges ona "full" sized screen the controls are going to be remarkably easy to use. I don't think most people under stand exactly how the controls will be used. this really is an innovated interface. combine some good ideas but I have never seen ex

Prediction: All touch

[Chairboy (88841)]

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 (200735)]

"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 (543967)]

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".

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[Tom (822)]

Which is par for the course. Name a company that had more hits than misses.

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[Jarjarthejedi (996957)]

Google...badam chish!

Don't get it? Hits? As in, 100,000,000 hits for 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C1...badam chish!

Re:Prediction: All touch

[catch23 (97972)]

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.

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[NMerriam (15122)]

they failed with ADB, NuBus, Firewire, ADC, and PCI-X to name a few

The only one on that entire list that *Apple* actually wanted to make a "standard" in any sense (outside of their own hardware) was FireWire. The rest all did exactly what they were supposed to do for their respective markets, they certainly were not Apple failures in any way whatsoever.

That said, yeah, the idea of converting every surface to a touch screen just because the iPhone and iPods use one is silly -- people generally don't want t

Re:

[blueturffan (867705)]

Firewire is a failure?

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[MBCook (132727)]

ADB was Apple's standard, NuBus was tied directly to the processor so it wouldn't have worked on x86. FireWire is doing quite well. ADC was... probably a mistake. PCI-X was available on PCs and probably would have won had PCIe not come around.

But USB had been around for YEARS when Apple put it on the iMac. But because they were willing to take a chance on it, they made it big. Before the iMac it was tough to find USB peripherals. Within a year they were everywhere. PCs would have held on to the PS2 ports a

Re:Prediction: All touch

[Telvin_3d (855514)]

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.

Re:

[daveschroeder (516195)]

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 m

Re:

[illumin8 (148082)]

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".

I beg to differ on a couple of those. Firewire is *the* standard for DV, and PCI-X is used quite heavily in servers and professional applications where PCI bandwidth is necessary. PCI Express hasn't quite caught on yet in the server space (but is coming up to speed rapidly).

Re:

[MtViewGuy (197597)]

I don't think the successor to the current 2G iPod nano will go to touch screen--the player is physically too small for one. Besides, the current click wheel design for the nano is very hard to improve upon anyway. I do see Apple dropping the 2 GB model and introducing a 16 GB model, along with increasing the number of color choices for the case design (the orange color introduced on the 2G Shuffle would look great on the nano).

Meh

[Judinous (1093945)]

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.

Re:

[SpeedBump0619 (324581)]

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.

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 ch

Re:

[WhatAmIDoingHere (742870)]

Well, the change from 3g to 4th and 5th gen must be BIG, since at work I change songs and volume through the fabric of my pocket without having to stop. I've had both a 4g and 5g iPod, and would probably buy a 5.5g over a 6g with full touch screen just for this reason.

How about for their freaking laptops?!?!

[aichpvee (631243)]

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.

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[catch23 (97972)]

I think Apple is coming out with a tablet mac next year. I hear they're naming it "Newton"

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[identity0 (77976)]

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.

Oh my god, I just had the greatest idea ever - the iNipple.

The idea comes from your post, and remembering putting my iPod in my breast po

Re:

[Staska (951557)]

You know, There's just such a gadget. iNipple: http://www.unwiredview.com/2007/04/04/crazy-ipod-a ccessory-an-ipod-bra/ [unwiredview.com]

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[splict (1024037)]

Yeah? Well, I don't want my iPod yelling at me that I'm using it wrong!

Re:

[Breakfast Pants (323698)]

Wacom has the patent on battery-less digitizers. What makes you think they would license it to Apple in a way that would undercut the insanely expensive Cintiq?

Touch screens are no good.

[prelelat (201821)]

Touch screens are no good on a video device. I don't think its a bad idea with an mp3 player or even a phone(if your not watching videos) but to constantly have finger prints all over your screen when you want to watch it is kind of a pain. I was looking at the artical and from what I gather they are sugesting to put the touch screen on the back kind of like a track pad on a laptop. That I think is the way to go on a media player like the ipod video. No fingers need to touch and greese up the screen and

Re:full screen nano?

[HTTP Error 403 403.9 (628865)]

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?

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[mblase (200735)]

Do you look at hand when you move your mouse?

No, but when I control my mouse I don't have my big thumb obstructing most of the monitor, either.

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[Magneon (1067470)]

Actually, on a screen that small, wouldn't it be helpful not to block 1/2 the screen with your finger? It's hard enough with an older palm pilot that only has a 3" screen. Imagine what it would be like with a nano?

Re:

[xouumalperxe (815707)]

From the sketches in the article, the patent is not on putting those two things together on a device (which wouldn't warrant a patent), but rather having them positioned in a particularly clever way, using the display to "pretend" you're seeing the touchpad beneath it (which, provided you believe in patents as a concept, warrants awarding one).