Apple applies for touch-screen Mac patent
Apple appears to be working on the concept of a Mac tablet again, based on a recent patent application.
(Credit: U.S. PTO (via AppleInsider))Rumors of Apple working on a touch-screen Mac have been circulating for years, and will only grow with the revelation that the company is hoping to patent similar technology.
A number of Mac sites on Thursday are pointing to a U.S. patent application granted for what would appear to be the mythical Mac tablet. AppleInsider has a description of the device discussed in the application, which appears to bring a lot of the iPhone's multitouch functionality to a slate-like tablet computer.
Given Apple' focus on multitouch user interfaces over the past year, there has been a fair amount of speculation that the company wants to do something similar with a larger, more powerful computer than the iPhone or iPod Touch.
The thing is, Apple's explored this territory before: I found one patent reference dating back to 2005, and other sites are reporting that the current application is similar to technology Apple patented two years ago.
Tablet PCs in the Windows world haven't sold very well, and the concept has almost completely fallen off the radar screen of the PC industry. That reluctance may be the result of software that isn't quite advanced enough to match the hardware, but few people seem to want a handheld computer the size of a piece of paper and the weight of a regular laptop.
Tom Krazit, a staff writer for CNET News, focuses on all things Apple. He has covered traditional PC companies such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard, chip companies such as Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, and mobile computers ranging from Research In Motion's to Palm's. E-mail Tom.
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my estimation, expect souped up palm's and blackberry's, with atom processors and super high capicity flash drives, along with an iphone that will have about as much use as a regular computer, by 2012 or so....
I HATE TOUCH SCREENS!!!
It's easier and cheaper to replace a keyboard than it is to replace a TOUCH SCREEN! Not to mention that they are unrelaible and a complete pain in the lower lumbar region!
Get the picture, Apple?
Lee Darrow, C.H.
I've switched to reading ebooks (PDF) almost exclusively and something in the form factor of an XL iPod Touch would be perfect.
Preview, Apple's PDF/image viewer for Mac OS X, provides the ability to "bookmark" pages in PDFs like one would use a bookmark in a physical book (different from Abobe's implementation of bookmarks).
A slender, portable, WiFi enabled (of course) Mac with touch screen built in? Talk about portable heaven. Count me in for sure.
And throw in a way to dock it to an external monitor and keyboard for Mr. Darrow above as well. He can't see the benefit of this, but I sure can, and I'd be willing to bet it would be a huge hit.
Imagine a $500 touchscreen movie player that could keep your entire movie collection at your fingertips when you travel, browse the iTunes store, browse the internet, and play games, etc. It could have an onscreen keyboard for simple things like filling out web forms or sending short message, but also bluetooth for an external keyboard when typing longer documents. Having said that, the chances that my vision matches up even remotely with Apple's are slim to none.
The Touch is the best candidate for this job if scaled up. However, it already costs $500 (having just bought one in July). A larger screen would just make it even more expensive.
Finger prints are fine on a cell phone. They are annoying as hell on the Touch. Now on a bigger screen they will be unacceptable.
PC makers could probably make this into a $500 subnotebook. That means Apple will charge $999 for the same thing. I wish I could say differently, but their history has proven otherwise.
Copy and Paste. Without it, this becomes a toy.
Are people really so lazy these days they just want to finger paint on their computers instead of playing WoW? And in any case how does a touch screen even improve your raid or arena skills? I don't know, some people really need to think about what they're doing. You know a friend of mine actually considered attending his kid's birthday instead of making his guild's raid on time. Irresponsible behaviour like that is hardly a good example to set his children when they grow old enough to play WoW themselves.
Not attending your kid's birthday party just to play World of Warcraft!?
Or may be you are fine with your kid to skip your birthday party for a computer game?
Suppose it is something other than the "monitor", something along the line of a keyboard?
Isn't that called a keyboard, which is already "touch" activated.. by touching the keys.. I agree that the idea is fun, there could be uses, and Apple has every right to protect itself. It may find some unique and innovative way to use this tech beyond the iTouch and iPhone too. Not a big fan of the iPhone, I feel there are others that do the job better albeit without the cool touch screen. The iTouch on the other hand is a wonderful piece of kit. I've had several MP3 players and none have come close to making me feel like I have a quality item the way the iTouch has.
Normally I'm not a big fan of Apple, but they do have several products that can't be bettered by their competitors. I use a PC and a Macbook, an iTouch and a PSP, I refuse to worship at the feet of any corporate. I'll take the best of what each of them has. Why limit yourself to the products of one corporate conglomerate, just because their advertising and PR tries to pass them off as somehow the bad boy or the rebel. Take a look at any of their recent legal action against their own customer base, and you'll see that accountants run the show at Apple as much as they do at Sony and Microsoft.
Cheers !
2: Multitouch computers are already on the market, for sale as we speak.
3:While the tablet PC hasn't "taken off" it has been profitable. If you consider it a failure you have issues. A small market share is not a failure. Look at the posts above not everybody wants a touchscreen but for some people they love it.
I recently moved on to a multi-touch, with more capabilities and more power, but more weight as well.
Tablets with built-in optical drives and permanently attached keyboards are somewhat cumbersome. I expect more interest once we eliminate spinning media hard drives and CD/DVD in favor of all solid state.
After Apple released the MacBook Air (a niche' notebook) I hope Apple actually addresses the fact that the MacBook Pro and MacBook need refreshing too.
Folks said the idea was flawed, the keyboard was the only way to input data, etc. I would imagine that years earlier, some even criticized the keyboard after having used punch cards for input.
I just got a touchscreen computer, and I struggle with remembering to use the screen vs. the keyboard.
My four-year-old, on the other hand, had no such struggles. She wandered up, saw what I was doing, and asked if she could try. I said sure, and pulled up a matching game. She did not think about what to do. She did not pause for a second. She went right to "work". She is able to use a mouse, and a trackpad, but gets frustrated with them easily. I saw no such frustration in the half an hour she played on the touch screen.
My point is that perhaps touch screens are a more intuitive way to deal with information on a computer than previous input devices, but perhaps I (We?) are a bit too stuck in my (our?) ways to accept it.
Eric
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by EuripedesCO
September 1, 2008 7:01 PM PDT
- Touchscreens are a major paradigm shift, I agree. One thing that will need to be addressed with any desktops that implement the technology will be the ergonomics.
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See all 24 Comments >>Conversely, I don't see the problem with tablets or notebook convertibles. I am rather surprised that Apple has not ventured into this market yet, considering technologies like Inkwell and Multi-touch have been patents that they have owned for years. They have been building the exact technologies to make such a device possible, practical, and reliable.
I do hope that Apple, if and when they get around to delivering the tablet multi-touch, that they allow it to use a stylus as well as finger. I need such a device to replace a digitizing board, and I am loath to spend what Wacom wants for a new Cintiq, even though I can see the increases in efficiency. A multi-touch tablet would fill that roll perfectly, but current iPhones cannot detect finger nails on the screen, let alone a sylus (frustrates a friend of mine's girlfriend when she tries to use his iPhone). Some modification of the input surface would need to be made. The human race has been using a stylus of some fashion for over 4,000 years, and it seems to be a comfortable way of entering information.
Apple in the past has looked at how the new functionality of a product will fit into a workflow. Sometime, as was the case with the Newton, they got the system right, but messed up with the form factor (ever carry one of those bricks around?). Light, durable, and stable, I think that should be the criteria when the tablet from Apple arrives. It will share many similarities with the MacBook Air rather then the iPod Touch (additional case volume will allow for a full-fledged, more powerful computer). In a sense, I think the Air is there to test the waters and practicality of certain technologies (such as the SSD, loading software remotely from and Airport) in preparation for the MacPad (if they got the other way I predict they'll call it an iPad, but that's so corny). With the power of a full computer, they will be able to charge the premium price like the Air, rather then try to fit above the iPod Touch, which is a bit pricey, but too limited for the applications a true tablet should be able to do.
Bob