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Apple files ‘proximity detector in handheld device’ patent application
macsimumnews.com — You hreard it here first! None-Touch!! Scrolling without actually touching the touch-screen. You hover your finger over the display and a virtual scroll wheel appears, you don't touch it, you just start scrolling and scrolling happens. You can touch the screen, but you don't have to if you want to keep the screen smudge free...COOL!!!
Ireland- 1281 diggs
- digg it
- Matic, on 10/12/2007, -2/+33This furthers the rumors of an iPod with it's entire real-estate as a screen. Freaking Awesome!
- Ireland, on 10/12/2007, -18/+5Agreed, this basically confirms what we all ready knew. They're working on a full screen iPod like device, but the question is does anyone have the patience to wait for such a device?? ..cause I know i'm starting to pull out my hair.
- ridgelawrence, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14Wow, I literally cant wait... till august 7 (WWDC)
- hyperpasta, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9^ Don't count on it... I personally beleive an event in September or October is far more likely for iPod/consumer-related announcements.
- sithmat, on 10/12/2007, -12/+2Wait until Apple starts reserving airspace for the virtual clickwheels.
Can't wait to get me one of those! - rasterbator, on 10/12/2007, -41/+2When I first read the info I thought it was for an iPod, but that screen is much larger. Even larger than the iPod WideScreen Edition.
http://digg.com/apple/CONCEPT_Apple_iPod_WideScreen_Edition - elnerdo, on 10/12/2007, -4/+19Raster, I think you're just trying to promote your own stories by putting that comment in.
- EagleY, on 10/12/2007, -31/+3No. it's not awesome, it's not COOOL. Stop being " I HEART Apple "
- clearrecrd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10This goes along with the patent to have a screen with thousands on camera like devices to detect motion and what not
- n00bst3r, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4This definately won't be out untill the promotion of $180 mail in rebate when you buy a new Mac and iPod for college students ends.
- mastercheif, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Why would they show off a new iPod at the World Wide Developers Conferance?
Besides, they don't want to take any of the spotlight off of Leopard. - sych0, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2goodbye scratches!
- HaxorBoba, on 10/12/2007, -11/+2HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA RASTERBATOR TRIED SO HARD TO GET TO THE FRONT PAGE BUT HE FAILED HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Vary, on 10/12/2007, -10/+4Are those illustrations to scale? That is one big iPod.
- hyperpasta, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13No, that's the iTablet ;-)
- missflibbles, on 10/12/2007, -9/+7Damnit, Apple better not come out with a tablet. I just bought a wacom graphire last year. I don't want them to make something that matches my computer and looks eight time better.
- missflibbles, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11I got the joke, but once they patent this, I bet Apple's going to try to move into the tablet business as well. Apple goes for the "artsy" people, and artsy people usually like to draw.
- rasterbator, on 10/12/2007, -12/+0Actually, if it's anything it would be an iPad, since they have that trademarked already. It looks like a high tech Etch-a-Sketch!
- mastercheif, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2It is the Macbook mini ;)
- Vorcht, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Sometimes I wonder who draws those pictures? I love the hand! +DIGG for kindergarden artistry!
- bayonetblaha, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16Can't wait to get my iTheremin!
- CaptShmo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11i want my ipod to be a clear piece of glass or plastic with an internal, semi-transparent projection of the screen. also, a pony would be nice.
- bayonetblaha, on 10/12/2007, -6/+4Has to be absolutely indestructible, too. And have a weight of zero.
- Ireland, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5My Motorola Razr is basically a piece of *****, but you know what? The little screen on the front is not scratched one bit, you know why? Cause it's made of glass, or at least covered with glass. Are you hearin' what I'm saying Steve?
- paulryan21, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'd like a pony too !
- missflibbles, on 10/12/2007, -14/+1Ooooooooooooo.
- Codee, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13Minority iPod WOOT!
- elnerdo, on 10/12/2007, -12/+1It's too bad that Rare has prior art in Goldeneye 007.
Proximity mines owned. - icdeadpeople, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2This is cool :)
- cerisaac, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Does anyone remember a recent Apple patent application that related to putting some sort of video capture device behind the screen? I believe this may tie into that. Hell they could use this type of input technology for anything from an iPod to the iMac to the Cinema Displays. Imagine being able to have full control over how the display is calibrated while keeping the design aspects within Apple specs.
- motheroats, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1if only ipod had Wifi and you could sync it over a network and also add songs wirelessly
- danlovejoy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I want wireless for podcasts. If it would just take care of those in the background, I wouldn't have to sync it nearly as much.
- flag564, on 10/12/2007, -9/+2The Zune will have wireless. You are better off waiting and buying one of those.
- ki85squared, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0If WiFi is added to the iPod, wouldn't that make it vulnerable to attack via wireless network? I don't want my mp3 player to be randomly hacked and then rendered useless or my music deleted. Let's also not get carried away here. Mobile devices should remain separate, IMO. Media players, phones, mobile web... all of them should remain separate. Devices that serve more than one purpose have never been amazingly popular.
- bayonetblaha, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Someday that much-anticipated iPhone will come out... iPod PDA Cell = mass hysteria...
Imagine taking the computer out of the loop for iTunes. Buy songs on your iPhone's screen.- reevolutn, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1well they have those motorollas with itune intergrated.. halfway there?
- Zminus10, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Does this mean that Data wasn't really touching the LCARS panels on the Enterprise?
- vannoy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Sadly no... The federation didn't have Apple's engineers. :)
- timmarhy, on 10/12/2007, -12/+3typical apple gimmicy *****.
this thing will be painful after 5 minutes i promise. - HHP2K, on 10/12/2007, -11/+3Wow. o__o; See, now that is just purely unnecessary. All that technology just so that you won't have to smudge the screen (when you inevitably will anyway)? Ridiculous. I wouldn't pay the extra money for that.
- hezral, on 10/12/2007, -8/+0i agree
- Zher0, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7It's a neat idea, but there would be no tactile feedback with such a system. The user will have to rely on visual and audio cues to know when a button has successfully been pressed. Our keyboards still 'click' for a reason.
- danlovejoy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+43G iPods have no tactile feedback. Feedback is better, but it's not a dealbreaker, IMO.
- DocDEB, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It would be a trivial matter to have visual/audio feed back with this. This sort of device would primarily be for video play back so I would expect strong visual cues.
- nTensify, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2iPods click when you move your finger around the wheel for a reason too ;).
Fact is, I don't need the feeling of it clicking if I hear that "click" noise the iPod's piezo speaker outputs, and I prefer a lighter touch unit (and I still use my 3rd gen iPod every day for that reason). - cromer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I have a 3G ipod with the four touch sensitive buttons on the top, and I also have a Nano with the click wiheel. There is no comparison...the click wheel with the tactile feedback is soooooo much better. With my 3G ipod, I have to actually look at the ipod to push the a button...I can't feel around for the buttons because they automatically get selected when you brush your fingers over them, which could pause, skip to the next song...whatever. With the click wheel, the worst that can happen is you might turn up or down the volume. Also, with the 3G buttons, you never really know for sure if you selected anything because sometimes it takes a second or two for the hard drive to catch up, and before you know it, you have skipped three songs ahead instead of just one because you kept on hitting the forward button until something happened. Tactile feedback is the way to go!
- SoulMaster2, on 10/12/2007, -10/+3Instead of touching it, I can now hover my finger several millimeters over it! Wow, talk about useful!
- lykathea, on 10/12/2007, -5/+5Let me rephrase:
Instead of touching it and getting the screen all greasy, I can now hover my finger several millimeters over it thereby keeping the screen nice and clear.
Useful indeed...
- lykathea, on 10/12/2007, -5/+5Let me rephrase:
- TrendyTim, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1I may be living in the past (well i am often accused of doing so), but i like tactile response, call me when they get that touchless touch screen to make it feel like your turning a dial.
Edit: Bugger too slow Zher0 just beat me - flag564, on 10/12/2007, -10/+2So a touch screen that will smudge and no tactile feedback? All you need is for it to overheat, lose its original color and have the battery die in 6 months, and you have the quintessential apple product.
Go Zune!- Vermifax, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I love quintessential Apple products! :-D
- franco313, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2weird but my old ipod 3rd generation did almost the same thing if you were 3/4 of inch from touching the play/pause rewind forward or center button it would already clicked by its self. i dunno if it was a defect something but mine did it.
- zweben, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Mine did that two. It's not supposed to but on some the buttons were too sensitive. This is completely different technology than that though.
- NightwareX, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Leave it to apple to create some cool *****! Not that this will make much diference though, lol it's stll cool!
- ascott9, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I just picked up my wallet and tried the scrolling motion about a inch away from the surface and it actually doesn't seem like it will be as bad as I expected. Depends on if its sensitive enough I guess. Everyone pick up something and use your thumb to spin in the air ;)
- mdoom, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1while if has the " cool " factor, I personally like my video ipod with the real click wheel. hovering over the screen will just like, make me worry that i will accidently keep touching the screen, and if its not glass, scratch it.
Don't get me wrong, I think this is amazing...and if anyone was to pull it off, it would be Apple!- superbaka, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I tried touching and scrolling on my ipod screen. Guess what? No smudges. The smudge issue is overblown - try it for yourself. We all use PDAs..smudges aren't much of an issue.
And in case anyone is wondering, those hands look silly because patent drawings are functional and the government makes you draw that way so there is no confusion about what finger is touching what, etc. - DocDEB, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I agree with you superbaka. I use my 5G iPod every day and certainly do touch the screen with normal handling. Smudges really have to be looked for by looking at the screen at an extreme angle which would not be a normal viewing angle. I can also see some tiny scratches at the extreme angle but they disappear at normal viewing angle. This is not to say that if you have some nasty ***** on you hands it will not show up. Also if you have some abrasive substance on your hands it will likely leave a mark. Just saying in my real world use experience screen smudging and scratches have not been an OMG problem.
- superbaka, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I tried touching and scrolling on my ipod screen. Guess what? No smudges. The smudge issue is overblown - try it for yourself. We all use PDAs..smudges aren't much of an issue.
- Tow2A, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1I can't wait for the apps that make your hover/touchweel look like certain parts of your favorite model. Just think of the possibilities
- Matic, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1I hope they integrate some kind of phone system in this thing. I keep seeing images of iPod concept phones with buttons on it and I started thinking, why must we put a ugly keypad on the iPod? How many of us actually use our keypads? most of our numbers are stored and we just go to the address book to make a call. I think having an option onscreen keypad and keeping the iPod nice and clean looking on the outside would be better.
- digitallysick, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Now we are talking , a way to scroll without touching the screen, the whole ipod = screen, ohhh yeah
- bdbr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Patent applications usually occur when the IDEA is first thought up - it is typically years before it actually translates to a product. They have to be submitted as early as possible, because once they're submitted, they take years to get approved (I have one pending from two years ago). I think the typical turnaround from the patent office is about 5 years.
If they had a product coming relatively soon with this, they wouldn't be submitting the application now.- jeremedia, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0First sentence of the article:
On July 20, the US Patent & Trademark Office published Apple's patent application titled 'CProximity detector in handheld device,' originally filed in September 2005. - spanner, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Looks like bdbr has popped the anticipation bubble :)
I have heard that one of the problems with the patent system is that of ideas being patented. Isn't that what alsomost closed down the blackberry this year?
Someone claiming royalites for the idea of the blackberry that they made years earlier, yet never had anything to do with theblackberry itself. - DarkJC, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Um, the entire point of the patent system is to patent ideas. That's not the problem. The problem is when people make patents for obvious things (like wireless device email in software for instance) and sit on it and do nothing and wait for another company (RIM) to take the risk and develop it. They then proceed to make boatloads of money by suing the company that actually did something with the idea they had.
- jeremedia, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0First sentence of the article:
- kunsthaus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@Vracht
It isn't kindergarten artistry. Is is common practice in patent filings to avoid detailed sketches and try to conform to a general approach to what the device / software might look like in order to cover as many implementation alternatives as possible.
BTW bdbr is absolutely right. - geekee, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Why not just put a normal touch sensitive sensor on the side of the case?
- motheroats, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0b/c if u touch it, it gets dirty, so if u don't touch the click wheel or the screen, no smuges or scraches
- theprez, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Because then it wouldn't be an innovation. But I agree, I think buttons like the Apple Cinema Displays would be better, but then again that was pretty much the 3G iPod. Apple probably wants to market something like "No Buttons".
- jimmiem, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This reminds me of HHGTTG where all of the touch sensitive controls had become so touch sensitive you didn't have to actually touch them anymore.
- Flashman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3 A loud clatter of gunk music flooded through the Heart of Gold cabin as Zaphod searched the sub-etha radio wavebands for news of himself. The machine was rather difficult to operate. For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive - you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same programme.
- gadgetlust, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Seems to me that one of the biggest advantages of such an interface would be the ability to operate the ipod through full-body ipod armour. Provided it had wi-fi and an inductive charger, there would be no holes to let dust in and no need to ever remove it from its case.
- the41stgrave, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I don't think its a good idea either. 1. It'll get scratched up beyond belief 2. If it drops, the screen will most likely break ( I had a 4th gen Ipod that i dropped on carpet, the screen cracked all over the place). 3. They should spend more money on making an external power button, because on my new ipod, sometimes the "on/off switch" and sleep mode options don't work.
- DelMonte, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yeaaaahhh riiiight...
" 1. It'll get scratched up beyond belief "
How can it becomes any more scratched than other iPods if you don't have to touch it?
I got an iPod nano since last november, I use it almost every day, without a case, and the screen is still perfectly readable. The scratch thing is way overblown. At worse a 5$ solution will repair most of the scratches easily.
"2. If it drops, the screen will most likely break ( I had a 4th gen Ipod that i dropped on carpet, the screen cracked all over the place). "
Oh so because you found a way to crack the screen on a carpet means that others will too?
"3. They should spend more money on making an external power button, because on my new ipod, sometimes the "on/off switch" and sleep mode options don't work."
External power button? on/off switch? What are you talking about? And if the sleep mode options don't work why don't you contact Apple? And what are those sleep mode options anyway?
- DelMonte, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yeaaaahhh riiiight...
- golly, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0nice
- friend18, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Is it a heat sensor? Because this will not work in the summer. oh and ***** AWESOME! I think a full screen ipod will be ***** awesome as well.
- bazac, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Steady on with that complex vocabulary, Wordsworth.
- gabeN, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Way cool, I was worried that they would release a full screen ipod that you'd have to get fingerprints on to use, how dumb would that be?
- virtualball, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I bet its a tablet Mac. There is no reason to have a widescreen iPod with such expensive technology :
- themacx, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1video iTunes..... need I say more?
- gr00vy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Screen Guards! Number one accessory is a case with a screen guard!!! Proximity detector keeps this alive, and keeps the revenues up, Up, UP!
- Dropscience, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Im def. Getting one
- Fengpost, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Actually, this is probably an evolution of projected capacitive touch input technology. Tablet does not recognize hand and only recognize the pen. The projected capacitive touch is already in use for larger monitor. See: http://www.elotouch.com/products/projected_capacitive/default.asp
- themacx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1it's an Apple!. just look at the crap options out there.
- meeh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1patent #20060161871 was filed in september 2005, seems a little out of date. but whatever.
link to patent: http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=20060161871&OS=20060161871&RS=20060161871- inkswamp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1As I understand it, when a company files a patent, they cannot use the technology in a consumer product for 12 months (I think, don't quote me) after the filing date otherwise the patent may not be approved. Apple made that goof with the iPod's interface and Creative stepped in to file patents for the idea (which is where all that junk about Creative suing Apple comes from.) Sept. 2005 would suggest that Apple is probably planning to use this technology in a product no sooner than two months from now.
- badapplestudio, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0All though this will be cool integrated into a computer, it's not all that ground breaking. Alesis and Roland have had proximity sensors in their products for awhile. Like the D-Beam. Although it would be nice to see this tech joined to a GUI. Hopefully they make a tablet PC with it embedded.
- peldone, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0What is cool about this is the limitless possibilities.
Any graphic can be loaded on the screen which means...
-Data entry with keyboard that takes up no space
-Full screen view for camera built into iPhone
-Video iPhone with a screen big enough to display a face without the need for buttons
-Customzable iPod interface (for hackers) - NerdyNinja, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This wasn't actually "here first" - this has been a rumor for over a month.
http://www.ipodobserver.com/story/27143
And it's likely that eventually Apple will introduce some sort of wifi capability, possibly through their Airport (like AirTunes or whatever it's called).
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