The Interweb is all a’flutter about an odd iPod patent filed by Apple that describes a device with screens on both the front and the back of the player. An amalgam of Sprint’s UpStage and the iPhone, this patent describes an interface in which a rear touchscreen accepts input and reflects that input on the front screen. Confused yet?
It works like this. Because a Nano-sized device would be too small to allow for a real front touch interface, the rear touchscreen would sense your finger position and show a cursor where your finger or thumb would be on the front screen. This frees up front real estate and could potentially allow for an onscreen keyboard and other goodies. Possible? Yes. Will it happen soon? Probably not.
This is all pie-in-the-sky conjecture, but it does show a potential design for a future Nano-sized iPhone and makes for great Apple rumor-mongering.
And Apple rumormongering is the glue that holds the internet together.
It is an interesting concept, and maybe not quite as far flung as it may seem. With new designs in OLEDs, paper thin electronic devices aren’t too far off.
That would actually be pretty cool. Seems like it would be a pretty comfortable and intuitive interface too, it would be kind of like holding a controller for a game console…
But what happened to the patent for the touch sensitive “border,” or whatever, that everyone was talking about ~6 months ago?
This is our design for I Phone 5.0 when we conquer the world along with Google , and become the next Microsoft …. HUHAHAHAHAH
yawn…
I just wanted to take this opportunity to share my coverage of the APPLE MUTANT ALIEN DEATH HAND patent illustration:
http://techfold.com/2007/05/10.....-of-death/
…this filing appears to safe.
Haha great post
I have some great info on this story. Feel free to email me at cst@cox.net for further info.
This idea is very similar to that described in an academic paper I read called “Under the Table Interaction” by some people at the University of Toronto (none of them me unfortunately).
Check it out, I think it is interesting:
http://www.dgp.toronto.edu/pap.....ST2006.pdf
Did I see a non-QWERTY keypad???
This is quite an intriguing idea and an interesting solution to the problem of trying to make small screens into touch screens. I’m not sure how well it would work in practice so would love to get my hands on one to give it a try. Is any of this relevant anyway as surely the iPhone will eventually make the iPod obsolete.
Seems cool to me- but I don’t quite understand the point..
You’d be surprised how quickly these products come to life. The iPhone multi-touch patents were released just 5 months before the products was announced:
http://www.appleinsider.com/ar.....iling.html
Did I see a non-QWERTY keypad???