CBCnews

Apple has created new multi-touch technology that enhances user interaction with the screens of its devices, according to patent documents.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple on Thursday, described as offering a thinner, quicker, high-resolution screen that will be able to detect touch on the sides of the device.




  1. Father says:

    The iSlate/iPad is suppose to have a “revolutionary” input technology, is this it?

    I was expecting something like camera-based eye tracking for “mousing”, scrolling, and maybe typing, or some breakthrough voice
    recognition.

    Is Apple too distracted, by having too broad a product line, to innovate with its existing successes? Will the iPhone suffer with the distraction of iSlate?

  2. ECA says:

    uMM,
    and how many versions of the iphone/itouch are there?? and all have diff hardware abilities??
    Is it version 5??
    This would be 6?? 7??
    and NOT backwards compatible?? this is going to be fun..PISS off the original customers, or FORCE them to buy a NEW PHONE to get the options..
    sounds like video cards and CPU on the PC..

  3. Cursor_ says:

    Sounds like an A & B button to start and then maybe a cross button touch and that makes it hand held game compatible.

    Cursor_

  4. qb says:

    #3 Cursor_ nailed it. It’s for gaming.

  5. Floyd says:

    #3, #5: In the recent past, Jobs has stayed away from the use of computers for gaming. Not serious enough, and the games clash with his turtleneck at demo shows. Never mind what the picture shows…

    Games for Macs almost always come from external developers, and they probably will for the new pad as well.

  6. Animby says:

    My current phone detects touch on the sides of the device. They’re called “buttons.”

  7. Zybch says:

    #1 Apple has ALWAYS failed when they have too many/too diverse a range of products.
    They are simply incapable of keeping track of things and we end up with crap like the iPod Touch not having a camera even though there is a space for it in the device, and the SKUs of their phone/iPod platform breaking compatibility and making developers work much harder to support exactly as #2 said.

    Perhaps they should buy a couple of copies of Microsoft Project to help them keep their asses in gear.

  8. Skeptic says:

    Ha ha… Apple hasn’t failed in a long long time. The stock is up 562% in 5 years…. about as long as the AGW pundits (Apple’s Got Worms) have been posting here.

    What can they learn from Microstoft?…

    … how to gain 15% in 5 years.

  9. Riscy says:

    Apple’s stock price says more about the stupidity of investors than about the success of Apple.

    Sent from Riscy’s iPod

  10. Animby says:

    I’d be willing to bet 100 of whatever your currency is that, in five years, Apple stock will be downright affordable. The iPhone will be passe and Steve Jobs will be gone.

    All bets are off if they do, indeed, come up with some new and miraculous slate device. But I don’t really see that happening.

  11. smartalix says:

    I’d be surprised if we didn’t see a lawsuit from Toshiba, who was embedding image pixels in displays for touch as well as image capture years ago. True, Toshiba didn’t commercialize the tech, but that doesn’t seem to stop lawsuits.

  12. qb says:

    Doh. I was wrong (a big shock). Apple hates buttons, switches, cords, etc. I think they want to get rid of mechanical switches.

  13. Skeptic says:

    Apple is a company. They make a lot of money because their products are usually groundbreaking, and they work. Microsoft has been behind Apple, and following their lead for decades.

    I don’t own an iPod, iPhone or any such device. I do have 6 PC’s in my home, 3 of which are older Macs that work relatively flawlessly in comparison to the MS operated machines.

    Current value of Apple 190 billion, Microsoft… 272 billion. My prediction, Apple will be able to buy Microsoft in 5 years..

  14. qb says:

    #16 *sigh*

    No, just a humble tech watcher. In the last couple of months my coding breakdown:

    C# 50%
    Java 25%
    Objective-C 15%
    Python/Javascript/Ruby 10%

    Worked on .NET integration (no goddamn BizTalk TYVM), Amazon EC2, Google Wave, Azure, iPhone, Android, and various little scripting doo-dads. Ex-Microsoft MVP (Architecture, Patterns, .NET).

    Yes I do Cocoa development. I also do Rails development. I do .NET development. Etc. I do them all. Hating some category of the tech world religiously means that I’ll be out of work. Keeping my mind open means I’ve never been busier and I get to do cool things. But just keep me away from Oracle…. 😉

  15. Skeptic says:

    Pedro, you are your own worst enemy. Instead of getting so emotional about a company or it’s products, observe them with a more pragmatic eye. You could have turned $10,000 into nearly $60,000 in 5 years. I was in at $35 and $59. it was the most “sure thing” I could bet on at the time, and I’m still holding.

    Do you really think the iPhone was just a cell phone when it was introduced? Why did Microsoft try and copy it then? (and failed). Same for the iPod. The whole world was going crazy for “i” anything… making up their own “i” products to try and get some of the action. They never stop. There’s always something in the works with Apple, and the usual dummies that claim nothing Apple does will succeed.

    Dumb, dumb, dumb move. Even if you work for Microsoft, you should see the writing on the wall and protect yourself. Badmouthing a very successful company won’t do it for you.

    They would be easy money, if you just stop being less obstinate and more savvy.

  16. Skeptic says:

    qb, I envy your programming abilities. I’m too old a dog to start learning that stuff.

    (You know I’m JimR… right? Skeptic is my alias for 2010. 🙂 )

    Canada rules !!!

  17. Skeptic says:

    Pedro, suit yourself. 😉

  18. qb says:

    Skeptic, I wouldn’t envy my programming abilities. My mother wants me to become a truck driver so she can tell her friends what I do for a living.

    You’ve got to watch what big three (Amazon, Google, and Apple) in tech are doing these days because the rest of the world will be doing it in 2-3 years. Microsoft, IBM, Oracle/Sun, SAP, Sony, etc are all on cruise mode.

    Take the Google Nexus – the first really “good” Android phone. One big screen, no keyboard. Apple did that 3 years ago. But if you had bet, everyone would think that all high end phones would have been copies of Blackberries.

    Will the big three last? Of course not, but they are the guys to watch right now. Personally I think Amazon EC2 will shake up the IT industry in more ways than you can bet.

    And I always love people who say things like pedro who hate companies that have made mistakes in the past (e.g. PowerPC). If you’re not making mistakes, you’ll never move ahead.

  19. Skeptic says:

    Re#22, qb… 10-4 eh.

    Interesting take on things… especially with Amazon EC2 which I find simply amazing. More than the basics of EC2 is still somewhat beyond my understanding.

    Getting old sucks.


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