appleinsider.com — Apple Inc. is looking to patent a design for a handheld device (or iPod) that displays its output on a small front-side display screen but receives input through a larger touch and force-sensitive back-side interface, AppleInsider has discovered.
May 10, 2007 View in Crawl 4
Closed AccountMay 10, 2007
Uhh..why would an iPod need a T-9 interface as the picture suggests?
masterofnoneMay 10, 2007
stories about apple's patent filings are like collective daydreams. nice wastes of time.
hittman6May 10, 2007
>>Does anyone else get the feeling that whenever someone working at apple presents a decent idea, they get a response like, "eh, just go patent it. i'll look at it more closely when i have time." That's the way most companies operate. They'll patent anything they can, the moment they can, no matter how trivial, useless or obvious it is.
p00pd0gMay 10, 2007
It's just the insider getting too excited, looking back at old patents for the iPhone... and dreaming too much about concept ideas. Thus all the errors in the pix.
masterofnoneMay 10, 2007
@skyscape...yeah... microsoft is all about functionality.
eccohawkMay 10, 2007
I'm guessing most people here don't understand what the patent is describing/implying. First off, this patent could be used for either a next-gen iPod -or- a next gen iPhone, or both. There were separate diagrams displaying both a click wheel representation as well as the phone pad input. Secondly, the idea of having functionality on both the front and back side of a device is nothing new, and that's not what's being patented here. The idea here is that the input on the back, a force-feedback input, would be able to be 'viewed' from the front through software. Essentially as if you were looking through the device to the back, to know where your hands are placed, and therefore, able to navigate casually -without- having to flip the device over and over again. An example of this would be that if you hover your finger with a light touch over the number '1' on the backside number pad, you would see a display on the front of the device with the number pad showing and the "1" key highlighted. Pressing harder on this area (see force-feedback) would then trigger the button and the key would show as being pressed on the screen on the front of the device.Is it a new way to input data? yes. Will people quickly get used to it after using it for a short time? I'm betting so. Just as quickly as people have learned to speed-text using features like T9Word or other predictive text inputs, people will quickly pick up on this one too.I think it's a brilliant way to do it.
jesse9300May 11, 2007
noobs
jarrydmMay 11, 2007
Vy the way did anyone notice that on the image with the keyvoard there is no letter V, it is a V instead?
jarrydmMay 11, 2007
vamit i got the letter i was trying to point out that was incorrect, wrong.