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Media (Apple) Businesses Media Apple Technology

iPod/iPhone Nano With Touch Panel? 122

Posted by Zonk from the they-feel-you dept.
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."
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iPod/iPhone Nano With Touch Panel? More

iPod/iPhone Nano With Touch Panel?

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  • And the best part... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anarchysoft ( 1100393 ) <anarchy.anarchysoft@com> on Friday May 11, 2007 @04:23PM (#19090463) Homepage
    ...is that calls from the doctor can restart your pacemaker.

  • Excellent ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by WrongSizeGlass ( 838941 ) on Friday May 11, 2007 @04:25PM (#19090509)
    ... now I'll own an iPod that I can scratch it to sh!t on two sides.
    • I don't know what version of the iPod you have, but mine is already scratched to shit on 6 sides.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Mooga ( 789849 )
      I'm just worried that the full touch screen would make it much harder to use.
      I often change songs and volume on mine by simply feeling where I am on the wheel. With the whole thing being a touch screen I would have to pull my iPod out publicly whenever I wanted to do anything as simple and turn down the volume.
      As obvious as that is, it would be a real pain.

  • How small do we need? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by identity0 ( 77976 ) on Friday May 11, 2007 @04:29PM (#19090551) Journal
    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: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by 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.

    • 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: (Score:2, Informative)

        by 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: (Score:3, Insightful)

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

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by cadu ( 876004 )

      Even in Japan, where mini=cool, there's a limit to how small phones get.

      Ha!

      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? :P)

      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

    • For me, smaller and lighter = better. I'm glad things are tending this way. I'm sick of heavy, bulky gear weighing down my pants pockets. And I don't want to have to carry a shoulder bag or backpack wherever I go.

      I'm really looking forward to the Samsung U100, an ultra slim phone which is also really light weight. I've been waiting for something like this for years.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by SuchiRu ( 675808 )
      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 sma

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by dwightk ( 415372 )
      If I could get a phone the size of my nano I would do it...

  • ALL? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Jerry Rivers ( 881171 ) on Friday May 11, 2007 @04:29PM (#19090553)
    "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? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by vux984 ( 928602 ) on Friday May 11, 2007 @04:40PM (#19090683)
      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.
      • High-end digital graphics artists have been using stuff like this for years already. For example: http://www.wacom.com/cintiq/index.cfm [wacom.com] (just the first one I could find on google).
        • "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
          • 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.
            • 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: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by 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.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Moofie ( 22272 )
      Right, because all professions require the same WIMP interface, huh? No reason to do some engineering and come up with some new ideas, is there?

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

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Moofie ( 22272 )
          I was questioning YOUR assertion that you know what all "professionals" need. I get more content out of my belly button than from a ZDNet article.
          • "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

    • Re:ALL? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by 26199 ( 577806 ) * on Friday May 11, 2007 @09:26PM (#19092925) Homepage

      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: (Score:2)

        by eh2o ( 471262 )
        From a purely technological standpoint, multi-touch is nothing really special, in fact the exact same materials that make a single-touch screen are used to make multi-touch screens also. (The JazzMutant Lemur is a good example, which I've used before and its quite a lot of fun). The main reason it isn't widely available already is cost -- multi-touch requires lots more ADCs and that means a lot of extra pins and wiring to support the parallel scanning of the sensor array.

        At the very least Apple did acquir
    • "ZDNet even thinks that this patent can hint about future touch interfaces for all Apple products." ...... iPod Mp4 Guide http://www.ipod-mp4-converter.com/ [ipod-mp4-converter.com]

  • Too small for a touchscreen, so it uses a panel? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Friday May 11, 2007 @04:29PM (#19090555)
    No telepathic UI. Less screen space than a Nano. Lame.

  • 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.

    • 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 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Chairboy ( 88841 ) on Friday May 11, 2007 @04:30PM (#19090581) Homepage
    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 (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mblase ( 200735 ) on Friday May 11, 2007 @04:37PM (#19090653)
      "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.
      • No, the biggest reason not to do touchscreens for most devices is the lack of tactile feedback. The idea of having the face of an iPod, for instance, as a full touchscreen was dead on arrival in that there's no good way to navigate without looking at the device. Navigation on the back, display on the front solves this to some degree but negates the need for having a touchscreen at all.

        And can you imagine a touchscreen instead of a keyboard? Touch typing would be awful, not to mention the glaring accessib

    • Re:Prediction: All touch (Score:5, Interesting)

      by prockcore ( 543967 ) on Friday May 11, 2007 @04:38PM (#19090665)

      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: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Tom ( 822 )
        Which is par for the course. Name a company that had more hits than misses.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by 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 (Score:4, Informative)

        by catch23 ( 97972 ) on Friday May 11, 2007 @04:59PM (#19090929)
        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: (Score:2)

        by 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

        • 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.

          As someone who's got a storage room full of ADC 15" flat panels at work, I would disagree with that.

          --saint

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by NMerriam ( 15122 )

            As someone who's got a storage room full of ADC 15" flat panels at work, I would disagree with that.

            But Apple never cared if anyone else picked up ADC, all they wanted to do was eliminate cables on their own systems. Of course once they started the move towards commodity hardware, they switched to DVI and moved to just using a special cable instead. But the ADC was always intended as a proprietary Apple connector that nobody else would have -- it was an "advantage" to buying an all-apple system that you d

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by blueturffan ( 867705 )
        Firewire is a failure?

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by 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: (Score:2)

          by ksheff ( 2406 )
          were you thinking of MicroChannel? At one point, IBM used it throughout their product line (PC's to mainframes).
        • I thought ADC was brilliant. Was it a mistake because they latter abandoned it (I guess because of cost?) or is there a bigger reason why it was/is a bad idea?

          FWIW, a few years back I bought an eMac instead of a Mini only because the latter did not have ADC. Apple actually got more of my money, and I kept the Cube working, so I guess that worked out for Apple in the short term. But I would have turned that first generation Mini into a media PC and bought a new one by now. The eMac is still good enough

      • Re:Prediction: All touch (Score:5, Informative)

        by Telvin_3d ( 855514 ) on Friday May 11, 2007 @06:27PM (#19091737)
        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.

      • 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: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by rjmnz ( 165487 )
        I'll bite
        ADB, one of Woz's greatest successes, a bus on almost nothing that survived for >10yrs. USB is a functional superset of ADB.
        NuBus, actually texas instruments baby
        FireWire, marketing issues and now specialist but by no means a failure
      • Failure my arse - tell it to my audio interface, my scanner, my external HD, my DV cam, my neighbors Sony notebook, my digital camera...
    • I could see touch-screen input being very useful. How many times have you sat in someone else's cube and had to ask "can I drive?" and take the mouse to click one button. It'd improve in-person collaboration.
    • 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).
    • "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'.

      Rather than touchscreens, it would be better to have multi-touch, pressure and torsion-sensitive, curved touchsurfaces - for eg., one on either side of the keyboard. The ghostly imp

  • TabletMacBook (Score:1, Troll)

    by kisrael ( 134664 )
    Wonder if they'll ever get around to a nice tablet MacBook type device, or if the shadow of Newton haunts them still...
  • Why not make a full screen iPod or iPhone Nano, and put an operational touchpanel on the back side?

    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.

    • Re:full screen nano? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by HTTP Error 403 403.9 ( 628865 ) on Friday May 11, 2007 @04:48PM (#19090781)

      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?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by 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.

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

          When you read a book, do your thumbs obscure the page? Keep your thumbs on the side on the nano and you won't have any problems.

          Hold the nano like one would hold a small P&S camera. Tuck the left side between your left index finger and thumb then use your right index (or middle) finger to touch the screen on the back of the iPod. You can use your right thumb to support the right side if necessary.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by 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?

  • Meh (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Judinous ( 1093945 ) on Friday May 11, 2007 @04:41PM (#19090707)
    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: (Score:1)

      by tzhuge ( 1031302 )
      To be fair though... the current interface isn't great for that either. I have a 3rd gen iPod without the click-wheel and I would have trouble doing what you're talking about on that thing. While I think you're point is a valid complaint, I don't think it's something to put against touch screen iPods specifically.
      • No, but it's definitely something that they need to think about. The ipod is a portable device, and portable devices are meant to be used on-the-go. It's interface should be built with this in mind. I believe that they did a good job of this with the shuffle, but I'd like to see them improve the interface on their full-size models. Touch screens are probably not the right direction to move in if this is the main functionality that they want the device to have. If they tacked on some simple track control
      • 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.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by cjdkoh ( 991723 )
      Although it doesn't say that haptic controls will be implemented in the article, it does say that it should be easy to do so. So it may still be possible to have one of these which you can control without having to look at the screen. How easy to use compared to the current interface I don't know, but it may still be possible. Just my two generic low value coins.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by 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

  • How about for their freaking laptops?!?! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by aichpvee ( 631243 ) on Friday May 11, 2007 @04:43PM (#19090727) Journal
    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.
    • What make tyou think you should use your phone while driving. This is outlawed in quite a few country around the world and it should probably be in the US too at least without a handfree set.

      Onthat same note there is nothing that disturb me as much has having the taxi driver making call while driving; I am paying him to drive me safely and his personnal conversation should wait for when I am not in the car.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by catch23 ( 97972 )
      I think Apple is coming out with a tablet mac next year. I hear they're naming it "Newton"

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by 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
    • 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?
      • What makes you think they would license it to Apple in a way that would undercut the insanely expensive Cintiq?

        Wacom has a market cap of less than $900M, so I can think of one way...

        At the moment one share of Wacom (Japanese Stock Market) is worth US$2,113, which coincidentally is roughly the retail price of a Macbook Pro. There are 419,000 shares outstanding, so a shipful of 419,000 laptops ought to do it ;-)

      • Wacom already licenses it's tech to anyone will to pay for it. It's been done in tablet pcs before and I don't see why apple would be any different. If protecting their Cintiq prices were what they were all about you'd think they'd rather partner with apple than a windows pc maker because apple charges more and thus would have less of a competitive advantage over the stationary Cintiq monitors.

  • Why this will never work (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    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.
    • See, I have 5 fingers on each hand, more than enough to fulfil most functions single handedly on a multitouch interface, leaving the other hand free for... whatever.

  • wonderful (Score:1, Redundant)

    by nanosquid ( 1074949 )
    Apple patents putting a touchpad and a screen on a single device! What will they think of next?
    • 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).
      • 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).

        And my point is that it's simply a touch pad in absolute positioning mode and a display on the same device, doing what they always do. The "clever" part is the reframing of how they present it, not the design itself.
  • iPod Nano + Touchscreen = Most frustrating experience ever. "ARGH, I tried to press play but deleted my entire library. Come on, my finger covers half the screen."
    • i must be like.. the ONLY person to treasure their ipod for causal reading. Am i THAT much different?

      Look, if they put a full vertical width screen on a nano and let me just scroll the page with my finger.. We've replaced the book, use it in both orientations, fits in your jeans change pocket, make it so it can hold more (currently limited by the number of "notes" it can carry to about 8 full size books..) never loses your place.

      Heaven! Of course, i already use the nano to read, so my eyesight must be prett

      • Although the iPod Nano might be usable as an ebook reader in a pinch, for me even if the entire front of the device was a screen (which might be what is needed to make a practical touchscreen user interface) the device is too small to be an adequate ebook reader.

        For years I've used Palm handhelds as ebook readers and the screen was okay (even a 160x160 pixel monochrome screen) but not the best for ebook reading. I see the problem with ebook readers is that there are two counter factors at work: (1) users

  • 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: (Score:2)

      by eh2o ( 471262 )
      Depends on how the final surface quality, and we have yet to see what that will be. I think it is possible to finish the surface with some sort of oil-resistant plastic. Somehow the current stock of touchscreen monitors actually hold up fairly well with respect to finger goo. The current iPod finishes on the other hand... unbelievably gross.
    • My interpretation of the patent was that you hold the device with the display pointing towards your eyes and move your finger on the other side or back of the device. The touch screen will show on the display the relative position of your finger as it moves across the back side of the device.

      Different finger tip pressure between movement and selection decisions can be used to identify different user actions.

      Novel, innovative and demonstrates someone has found a solution to the finger-prints-on-the-screen pr
  • I already own a fully touch screen PMP.. the Iaudio Cowon D2. 4gb of built in memory SDHC slot music, movies, photos, text, FM radio, microphone 52 hours music playback, 10 hours video on 1 charge drag and drop file trasnferring regular firmware updates price (with 8gb SDHC card): roughly $260
  • Xerox developed the GUI interface, but they didn't really know its potential in computing as their narrow focus was on the copier. Apple requested and received permission from Xerox to show it to their engineers. I think Apple also paid them some sort of license. Apple then took the ideas of Xerox to develop the first Mac operating system. iPod Mp4 Guide http://www.ipod-mp4-converter.com/ [ipod-mp4-converter.com]

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Real programmers don't bring brown-bag lunches. If the vending machine doesn't sell it, they don't eat it. Vending machines don't sell quiche.

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