Apple hiring multi-touch engineer for Mac hardware group

Does it strike anyone else as strange that Apple is hiring a "reliability engineer" to work on "supporting multi-touch panel development with Mac... hardware groups"? Then again, it might just be a typo or a fudged up listing -- these kinds of speculative positions tend to pop up on Apple's job site rather frequently. See it for yourself after the break (just in case Cupertino HR wises up).

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[mushrooshi @ Dec 18th 2007 8:17PM]

*cough* TABLET MACBOOK *cough*

[Ireland @ Dec 19th 2007 6:18AM]

*cough* They are two different products *cough*

First there's the Macbook, and soon there will be Mac touch.

You get it?

[peter @ Feb 17th 2008 7:50PM]

they dont even let me interview them for my school project

[wickedpheonix @ Dec 18th 2007 8:25PM]

Ah ha, confirmation of the imminent MacBook Tablet coming at Macworld =D

Take that Latitude XT...

[The Grand Master @ Dec 18th 2007 8:56PM]

I'd be amazed if the person that they have yet to would be capable of building a production-ready (or even demonstrable prototype) Apple tablet between now and January! If they could, well damn! They should be in charge of a lot more than just multi-touch on the Mac.

[lolec @ Dec 18th 2007 9:14PM]

where does it say the job opened today?

[TJ @ Dec 18th 2007 9:14PM]

Maybe not building but reliability testing, it could happen. Announce it in a month. Test it out for a couple or so months. Then release it after.

[wickedpheonix @ Dec 18th 2007 9:31PM]

@ the grand master

I read something in there about "reliability" and "support". My guess is that this has been in existence for some time, this guy would help work out the kinks, and it gets announced at Macworld to be manufacturered around April or something after guys like this work the kinks out.

Point is, I doubt a guy whose responsibilities are "reliability" and "support" would be starting this new project from scratch.

[brandon_r87 @ Dec 18th 2007 8:34PM]

Interesting but only rumors: I talked to a guy who is the Apple Rep at my campus, and he says that he expects Mac Tablets to get announced in January. He says that everyone at the Apple Store is saying the same thing. He thinks it will have no physical keyboard, either on screen or through one of those things where the computer projects a keyboard onto whatever surface you're typing on. I hope it is neither of those, but physical keyboard or not, I'm excited for a Mac Tablet even though I've never been a Mac owner or fan in my life. The Apple rep said that anything is speculation though, since Apple always keeps everything so secret, since they always announce it and then add that you can order one the same day.

[nerdtalker @ Dec 18th 2007 9:16PM]

Well, you don't need to worry about the keyboard being "projected onto a surface and you typing on that." That idea is long dead, as it turned out that typing on something that isn't tactile and doesn't sink under finger presses just compounds the effects of joint-decay which eventually lead to carpel tunnel. So, that technology was too much of a liability (just try it yourself and your hands will start hurting) to ever see the light of day, and thank God.

Don't worry though, I use the oft-made-fun-of Samsung Q1 UMPC and carry around one of those collapsible bluetooth keyboards for when I need to type something other than a URL, and it works out fine. I just hope OS X has good tablet functionality, especially handwritten text recognition. If they can do that and come up with a OneNote-like product, I'll ditch all my PCs for Macs. There, you have it. That's my own personal ultimatum.

[az_runner @ Dec 18th 2007 11:02PM]

Um guys....the iPhone runs the Mac OS. Thus the Mac group would need somebody like this.

They are the first company to take multi-touch mainstream with the iPhone and iPod Touch. If they want to keep the lead they need to do it for desktops and get rid of the mouse. They would be stupid not to, Microsoft and LG.Philips already are.

[David Clark @ Dec 18th 2007 8:37PM]

I hope you guys at Engadget have good health insurance. If you keep reaching so far off, you're going to sprain something.

[Ellianth @ Dec 18th 2007 9:47PM]

LMAO! hahaaha

[Constable Odo @ Dec 18th 2007 8:40PM]

Apple MacTablet would like you to touch. Kiss the other tablets goodbye. Tablet computers finally go mainstream, thanks to Apple.

[Brad @ Dec 18th 2007 9:16PM]

"Tablet computers finally go mainstream"

I'm not sure quite what you mean by this. Do you mean that a small percentage of the already small percentage of Apple users will purchase Tablet PCs? Or do you think that somehow a keyboard will be replaced as the most efficient means of entering data into a computer? Or do you just not do any real work on your computer, and so you only need to scribble and type words a few at a time?

Tablet computers with real keyboards, like the Dell, Fujitsu, fit into certain niche markets very well. I went to a hospital once where all the nurses carried around tablets instead of clipboards. I've been to shipping facilities where managers wander the floor with tablet PCs with barcode scanners (probably RFID by now) and tracked all the packages moving in and out. Hell, every UMPC with a touchscreen is a "tablet pc".

So I ask again, how will Apple releasing another one be "mainstream"? What is the huge new usefulness that you'll get out of multi-touch on a tablet? You spend a lot of time pressing four keys at once? Fingerpainting?

And before anyone says "Multi-touch means you can hold shift and press a key at the same time" realize that you can do that on touchscreens now, you just have to let go of shift before you press the next letter, and lo! you get a capital.

[Elliot @ Dec 19th 2007 8:01AM]

multi-touch/capacitive on screen keyboards work a lot better than resistive touch ones. it's pretty much the difference between typing with two hands and one finger.
Does anyone here only ever touch one key on their keyboard at once? Does anyone here rest their hands on their keyboard whilst not typing? Does anyone here always fully release one key before pressing the next?
Shift is useful as well, but any form of real typing outstretches the capacity of existing touchscreen solutions. Let's just hope that they've got some tactile feedback sorted out

[Cycomachead @ Dec 18th 2007 8:41PM]

Couldn't this be for and iPhone/iPod touch and not necessarily a new computer? I mean the iPhone runs OS X right, can't it be considered a mini Mac.


Also it could be some lazy copy and pasting. Or IFFFF Apple is really hiring right now we won't see a device till most likely Sept-MSWF 09 and maybe an announcement in Jan or at WWDC.

And I'd hope it takes that long! Apple need to keep up it's QA

[js @ Dec 18th 2007 8:58PM]

In other news, Palm Inc. is looking for Financial Analysts in their HQ at Sunnyvale, California....

[farnarkle @ Dec 18th 2007 9:06PM]

Sounds like a fun job after reading the job description, i.e. you get to break stuff. Perhaps the blender guy should apply.

[RAM Engineer @ Dec 18th 2007 10:12PM]

Why is it strange that the announcement would be for a Reliability Engineer? Most companies that design and build THINGS have (or should have) at least one reliability engineer per product. And since multi-touch displays are a new technology (especially at bigger sizes), you need to get a handle on the reliability up front. There are no RIAC tables or -217 or other existing databases that you can pull reliability predictions/performance from. You can only find out by testing. And analyzing. You know...basically the stuff listed at the end of the announcement.

[tamoghno @ Dec 19th 2007 4:04AM]

i really like the job title - "Reliability Engineer"

at lease apple raelized that they need more Reliability than beauty.

good direction apple , move on.

[Jonathan Bergeron @ Dec 19th 2007 8:54AM]

Why is it strange? Touchscreen tech is the next logical step in computing.. I'm just waiting on Minority Report type computers. Those computers will be so cool.