Apple's patented the Tablet Mac (part II)
By Ryan Block 
posted Feb 2nd 2006 4:19PM
posted Feb 2nd 2006 4:19PM
[Via Mac Rumors]
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I hope this is more than just a big iPod or a multimedia controller. I'm a professional in multimedia/education, and this is just the thing I'm looking for to free me from the podium. To be able to walk around the classroom or the studio and teach, edit, what have you all in real time, wirelessly, without worrying about dropping a stylus...this is PERFECT! I'm hoping this is a special edition of the iBook or the MacBook, tablet style.
Oh, by the way, I'm a lifelong PC user who's considering the big switch. I love tablet PCs and the freedom they offer, and Mac coming out with a tablet would push me over into Macdom. We all know what they say:
Once you go Mac, you never go back.
A step further toward the Apple Smart Home and Smart Cars. With the rising popularity of On-Demand TV, DVR, and Satellite Radio, I'd like to see a simplified integration of these technologies by Apple designers.
HELP!!!! I have fingers growing directly out of my wrist!!!
hi, i have a hp pavillion tx1332la and i think i can get mac to work on it, but the big doubt is that this pc has a touchscreen and i just don't want to stop using it, so i was wondering if there is any application for mac that lets me use the touchscreen, i mean like the tablet pc for windows, is there anything for mac, it doesn't have to be the best ever seen just have to work, if anyone has an idea or knows some software that i can use please let me know, my email is fidmor.89@hotmail.com thanks
I created a wiki for building your own mac tablet pc:
http://www.editthis.info/mac_tablet_pc_wiki/index.php/Main_Page
does this new video ipod have a name?
i want to know when the new ipod is coming out.
Hitchcock
that hand is so awesome
If using it is going to mutate my hands like that....NO THANKS.
sigh . . . one day my love
Christ, that's a scary looking hand in Fig. 23D.
Microsoft research has done some cool stuff with pen-based gestural input on tablet pcs, but none of it has ever ended up in the actual product. As usual, it looks like apple is going to be the first to bring an innovative ui to market, which is pretty sad considering Redmond has had several years to do this.
Yet another Windows nick. Do these guys ever come up with something original? There should be an acronym for stuff like this.
...Y.a.w.n.
right... because the concept of tablet architecture or non key/mouse Input is soley the provision of the PC. hmmm. you're kind of response is tired and boring and frankly the kind of bull that makes the PC wonk type have a bad name.
i suppose that MAC should be admonished for having monitors, mice and so on too. stop with the creepy, kneejerk PC vs MAC bulldada and grow up.
I'm actually thinking this is for a video ipod where the entire width of the ipod becomes a widescreen display, and the "scroll wheel" becomes touch screen.
duh, this 'tablet PC' IS the DVR/MediaMac. That is to say, the touch screen tablet will be the controls for your digital home (a la Sonos, for for movies and photos as well as music).
It's so obvious!
I think this is going to apply to the new video iPod. I was watching diggnation and Alex was talking about how cool it would be for the new iPod to have a 16:9 full touchscreen where the scrollwheel would pop up on screen when you touched the it, and allow you to do everything you normally would with the current scrollwheel. I also believe that is where apple is going with this patent. lets see what happens in a few weeks...
This is what Bush must have meant about 'Human-animal hybrids'.
Hancock.
hmmmm.... anyone else see the potential for a touch sensitive iPod screen. There's always beed rumours of a "big" screen iPod with a touch sensitive screen. We know that the current 5G isnt THE video Ipod, according to Jobs, so maybe this represents a move towards an iPod with a huge touchy feely screen, that diagra does have a little click wheel esq circle with a finger on it.
Alternativley I could just have an overactive imagination......
Fig. 27D could be the next video iPod...
Those hands are scary.
again, pls note that this is merely an application for patent (published according to statute 18 months after the earliest date of priority sought or filing), not a patent. apple seeks to obtain patent protection (an exclusionary right, not a right in itself to make/use/own) the invention described only by the claims listed at the end of the patent, generally much more specific/narrow than that suggested by a quick view of the figures or spec.
Hancock, not Handcock. Although I'm sure the engadget editors will attribute it to a freudian slip.
umm...what's a "Handcock?"
Hmm, think Nokia 770 meets video iPod. Personally, I don't really want a tablet PC, but a web browser + media player + universal control + book reader, perhaps.
Think of the nice video interface to a home media player this could be. Add high speed wireless and you have an Apple version of Location Free TV too.
HANCOCK, not HANDcock PLEASE! The latter is NSFW =d
put it down all you want, but I think it's interesting to see Apple bring their iPod scroll-wheel to the tablet UI, which to me seems like a make-or-break move(think Sony's Jog-Dial, which was tested on early Vaio laptops, then subsequently killed).
Now, we see why Apple has long been rumored to have bought FingerWorks.com....cheaper than a lawsuit.
Must be Costanza'a hands post iron incident.
Yinda hard not too when all Microsoft did with their interface is slap a bunch of addon cabs into XP and add a memory leak and call it done. Honestly youd think Microsoft would have learned its lesson with their Palm sized PC experiment. That being that the Windows standard interface does NOT fit all form factors. Something they somewhat learned with the Pocket PC. If Microsoft and their FANatics want people to stop hacking on them they shouldnt make it so damn easy.
"Yet another Windows nick. Do these guys ever come up with something original? There should be an acronym for stuff like this."
Yinda hard not too when all Microsoft did with their interface is slap a bunch of addon cabs into XP and add a memory leak and call it done. Honestly youd think Microsoft would have learned its lesson with their Palm sized PC experiment. That being that the Windows standard interface does NOT fit all form factors. Something they somewhat learned with the Pocket PC. If Microsoft and their FANatics want people to stop hacking on them they shouldnt make it so damn easy.
to Keng (#19):
Just what I was thinking... I'm still using two TouchStreams, one at work and one at home so I don't have to lug them around...
Let's just hope that Apple maintains the same level of tech that the Fingerworks guys came up with.
that hand position is the same one used for the original iMac puck mice
I'm as far from a designer as it gets, but even I can predict in a not too distant future an iPod with a screen almost as big as the device, and where the controls are software-based, via a touchscreen. Say, october 2006.
Apple will domintate the home media, just like the i pod way. Bad new for the competition
Iii see that Apple is still using that frog-hand artist..... One would think that Apple could afford better patent artists.
How come no one has made mention of how much this looks like Steve Jobs' profile? Take away the hair, and you've got yourself a vectorized Stevie.
Actually, this is the new Apple Etch-a-Sketch.
Something like this is just what people need. Something smaller than a laptop, that can be worked with your hands. Extremely simple, and simplicity is what sells. I find it hard to believe the machine would run with your hands though, seeing as a large majority of the buttons on a screenw ould be smaller than an average finger. A stylus would most likely come into play here. Something like this would be great. This touch technology could also come into play with desktops and laptops. It could revolutionize the way people work on their computers. Great stuff, definitely looking forward to more information.
Interesting speculation, but just imagine how often you'd be wiping your fingerprints off your juicy new ipod screen every time you want to watch 'lost'... Maybe they'll come with a free cloth.
I hope to god it's Newton 2. Secksy.
To: toomanyplugs
2 TOUCHSTREAMS!!!! MAN THAT'S A GOLD MINE YOU JUST CAN'T AFFORD TO MINE!
they're still going for about $800 a piece on ebay and i wouldn't sell mine for twice the price except the day before the start selling them again only this time not maroon!
LMAO at the comments regarding the hand in F23D.
I also think this might be for the future video iPods which will probably be released sometime before the '06 holiday season right after a higher capacity iPod is released.
Think iPod nano. What good is this? Fingerprints all over your screen to match your scratched nano with fingerprints.
Hey #34. Have you seen what a coating like TDK's Durabis 2 does with fingerprints and scratch-resistance on the new Blu-ray discs?
Have a little foresight and welcome to the 21st century.
Most of the multi-touch input and bimanual (2-handed) gestures on touch surfaces have been done and published before. See the videos and published papers for the DiamondTouch multi-touch multi-user tabletop tablet and work done at University of Toronto by Mike Wu:
http://www.merl.com/projects/DiamondTouch/
http://www.dgp.toronto.edu/~mchi/
http://www.merl.com/publications/TR2005-096/
http://www.merl.com/publications/TR2005-109/
"7. I'm actually thinking this is for a video ipod where the entire width of the ipod becomes a widescreen display, and the "scroll wheel" becomes touch screen."
i agree. its def an ipod thats all screen, for maximizing movies but also using the scroll wheel. be wicked if it was also a remote control for my mac, change songs and stuff and my mac plays it through my speakers
Way back in 1993 or so I remember watching a program on TV called Beyond 2000 or Beyond Tomorrow or something. It was either British or Australian in origin. They were showing the "next revolution" in touch-screen controllers and had a working prototype of a multi-point touch sensor that was "to be used in the space shuttle to replace panels and panels of knobs and dials with a few simpler touch screens". The operator simply touched two points on the screen like they would when grabbing a knob and twist.
How could Apple get a patent on something that I KNOW has been in existance for more than a decade?
I also thought of the video ipod with the scroll wheel on the touchscreen, but it can't just simply be that. A lot of people like the feel of pushing a button, which is why it's a click scroll wheel. But I say add the force-feedback from Immersion (anyone have the force-feedback mouse from logitech, i loved that thing...) for touchscreens. Check it out:
http://www.immersion.com/industrial/touchscreen/