Although the
MacBook Air's multitouch trackpad is pretty nifty, it looks like Apple has even grander plans in store -- a recent patent filing describes the MBA's current features as "Basic Multitouch" and contains descriptions of "Advanced" touch operations like system control, file management and browser navigation. While the filing details using a combination of the thumb and two fingers to cut, copy and paste -- something that seems awfully relevant to that little iPhone thing Apple sells -- what we're most intrigued by is the description of the "side pinky swipe" to control system functions like volume and screen brightness. Since the side of the pinky produces a different shape than your fingertip on the touch sensor, the system can automatically recognize it, making it ideal for quick adjustments -- we're already dreaming up lists of macros to trigger. Of course, there's no telling if and when we'll ever see this stuff in a product, but it's probably not a coincidence the iPhone, iPod touch, and MacBook Air all use the
same Broadcom touch controller -- let's hope those long-awaited new MacBook Pros join the club, eh?
[Via
AppleInsider, thanks Kiwi616]
posted Feb 19th 2008 2:48PM
All am I saying is that please patent these gestures and allow for standardization. I would hate to learn different gestures on each computer make!
AGREE..makes me wanna set a macro for one middle finger
LOL
there's still no right click for apple. duh.
Yo dummy, they DID patent them. Which means that you will have to learn other gestures for other computers, because Apple is a patent bully.
@ LikesGadgetsWillTravel
Yo dummy? I can see where you got your education from.
If you read my post it was stating the actual gesture to be standardized/patented and able to be utilized by others. Not just patenting them dummy! Read into things a bit more prior to replying like a 13 year-old.
hey pscs, what do you think "secondary click" is?
@LikesGadgetsWillTravel
"...Apple is a patent bully."
um, yeah. they got screwed big time by a certain, unnamed, but rather well-known software company. i would imagine they've learned to protect their ideas with a vengeance.
How about just using context menus? I know, it's a weird idea...
Perhaps we should also stick with a horse and buggy.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Context menus are simple and easy to remember. This multitouch gimickery with a half bazilion ways to use unnatural and finger twisting gestures on a 3" pad isn't simple or easy to remember.
context menus are for mice. i think the existing gestures are great, and i welcome more. or *gasp* have both
Horses and buggies aren't broke, either.
Does anyone remember the special alphabet used for Palm devices 10 years ago? It wasn't *that* difficult to learn -- took an afternoon to memorize and a week to become second nature. I suspect this'll be the same. On Day One it'll be novel, Day Three it'll be annoying, by Day Seven it'll be so natural you'll accidentally drop your regular mouse when you go to paste something...
"Horses and buggies aren't broke, either."
Mine are.
"multitouch gimickery with a half bazilion ways to use unnatural and finger twisting gestures on a 3" pad isn't simple or easy to remember."
First of all, the existing multi-touch functionality present on the iPhone and new Macbook Air is actually very intuitive and incredibly easy to master in a short time. I'm sure the more advanced gestures will take a little bit of extra practice to learn, but will definitely enhance the user experience. If *ANYONE* can move us away from the current stagnant desktop metaphor to an entirely new intuitive interface that finally exploits our five digits, it would SURELY be Apple. Even the most fanatical anti-apple fanboy will admit that they are literally the best in the world at creating mainstream intuitive software interfaces.
Stick to context menus? are you serious? Context menus are the scurge of software. Yeah let's stick with 25 year old technology and not dare challenge the status quo because the existing system "works". Back when Bell Labs created the first GUI, you would have been one of the guys ridiculing the concept of a mouse with crap like "why change it? The keyboard works great!".
Besides, no matter whether any new idea for an interface paradigm ever gets adopted, wouldn't you agree it is much better to attempt to innovate than to sit back with the "ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality? Good god, I can only imagine if every R&D center was run with that attitude.
For IT pros, designers, developers, and geeks, keyboard shortcuts allow very fast use of specialized software. However, this requires a lot of time to be invested, and with each new application or operating system, you have to learn them all over again. Worse yet, only a small amount of key combinations have been somewhat standardized across different apps, making for a real headache.
This is the best we got and for most people, AKA the 90% that don't use a computer 10 hours/day, this is not an option. They have only the mouse cursor and end up drowning in menus and toolbars.
I don't know if or how a multi-touch paradigm will overcome these existing problems, or whether it will truly become the next generation of computer interfaces or will be relegated to a few select entertainment uses. But in the end, I sure am hopeful that at least some companies are working on it. And for that, I give Apple big props!
Ohh, boy. I'd love to try and use 4 fingers and my thumb on an iPhone
so that when you do that in public people will stare at you less?
What?
That was sarcasm. It would just make you look stupid and would be impossible to control properly
i guess you missed my feeling-up-an-iphone-in-public joke
I thought it was some kind of wanking joke O.o'
I'm not an apple fanboy and I don't like the iPhone. Well that's not true. It works, it's just overhyped and overpriced, using mostly old-ish technology.
but I certainly wouldn't feel one up, in public or elsewhere.
:cough: gimmick :cough:
And copy and paste can be yours all for the low low price of a 20 dollar upgrade! I agree with Matt. Is there a reason why they can't just use a context menu?
Copy & Pasting since 300BC
Give me a break... It is sad when companies can patent stupid concepts like this. Not that having it won't be useful, but it shouldn't be patent material...
Someone should start a blog tracking how many of these unearthed patents end up in products.
Yet again the iphone/itouch reminds me of the Onyx
I know a three fingered iphone user who is NOT going to be happy with this.
dammit, i never should have bet my pinky on that stupid iPhone market share bet.
And you thought Bluetooth headsets looked nerdy. . . Sign-language-like gestures to your gadget FTW!!!
dude.. Jack Bauer's evil brother wore one; and he looked kinda menacing or something
Cut and paste with "advanced multi-touch" = fun
Same gesture with your hand in a sock = sock puppet = not fun?
I bet this is not for the iPhone or iTouch. It will certainly be implemented there but it will be of moderate use at best..
Aren't we all waiting for the tablet mac? All these gestures are only a preparation for the big touch pad, I am sure. And I am also sure that they will implement a beautifully new type of UI for that one, too!
Can't wait...
All this multi touch nonsense is utterly useless. I have a winmo 5 phone and I got suckered into buying an iphone, i hate using the iphone, flicking thru millions of contacts to get to someone whose name begings with M is not my idea of fun.
Especially in notebooks, how useful could this be? We either use mice and if we're on the go keyboard shortcuts work much faster anyway. Apple and their dumbing down of everything is sooo American (no offense just a commonly held perception in Europe).
Apple products are pretty, the more effeminate breed of gadgets, I'd take a good ol hair Winmo anytime.
um.. you do know there's a vertical alphabet shortcut to the right side of the contacts list right?
@phanbouy
did it ever occur to you that if you have more than 50 contacts in each letter in the alphabet, you will still be scrolling through a long list of say M entries, even if you punch that iphone mini alphabet of yours? oh.. i forgot.. iphone fanboys don't have much friends and contacts to call.. that explains the short contacts lists..
lol you're a nasty little bugger huh? just pointing out a feature. maybe you should have < 26 * 50 contacts huh? or try using the favorites list. nice try starting a fanboy war though, MS fanboy.
and adeel, you really should stop adding random names from the phonebook just to impress others with your size. (of contacts). p.s. if you got "suckered" into buying one guess you're not too bright in the first place, eh? don't take your buyer's remorse out on others.
@ytsejam_ ever heard of contact groups? sheesh - get organized little fella!
these finger gestures are starting to get tiring.. the zooming/pinching and paning/sliding actions are great ideas because those gestures really somehow mimics the gestures that should be done in real life.. but c'mon, 3 finger spread and 3 finger pinch? what does it have to do with copy and paste? swipe up for undo - huh? CCW rotate to cancel and CW to select all - say what? how can you even remember those? i agree.. just a damn right click context menu is enough.. easy, FAST and MORE INTUITIVE.. even universal keyboard shortcuts can do better job.. since these gestures are TEXT EDITING GESTURES - meaning you have your 6-10 fingers occupying the keyboard, it is more likely that using command+V or command+C is a HELL LOT faster and easier than reaching for the PAD and do some 3 finger acrobatics..
Maybe the 3 finger spread/3 finger pinch thing is like picking something up and putting it back down...hummmmm, thats kinda like what you do when you copy paste. Amazing!?!?!
Hum...what about a foot switch
Way too complicated for my liking! Somehow goes against the whole intuitive interface thingy. Wait, wasn't that the iPhone's killer feature? And this diagram somehow reminds me of those old Grafitti charts...
How is this things supposed to differentiate between THUMB + 3 FINGERS and 4 FINGERS anyway? What if I'm some deformed mutant with an oversized middle finger?
Anyone know if the hardware used in the iPhone, iPod Touch, MacBook Air could support this, or would it mean a hardware upgrade too?
This looks a bit too complicated, coming from a company that *still* doesn't trust it's users with a right mouse button.
i guess amputees are out of luck... :(
Phanbouy you are not helping your cause, it so happens that some of us do have friends outside of Apple forums ;)
I know about the alphabet shortcut but it still doesn't cut the mustard for me.
P.S. I got suckered cuz I acknowledge that the iPhone was a significant step forward in terms of Cell phone UIs, I just had to try it first hand. I consider it a worth wile investment, if for no other reason, than to learn it is best to stay away from Apple products in the future :D
hey buddy, my only causing is busting the FUD. next time, "try it out" in the store instead of starting more cliched fanboy wars. good luck on the mustard thing though
correction, "my only cause".
Why doesn't it cut the mustard? Also, what's wrong with sorting contacts into groups? The iPhone does have shortcomings but your reasons for not liking it are utterly stupid IMHO.
What if you slide the pointer, middle and picky fingers across the trackpad... will the mac book squeal with delight?
what happens when you slide the pointer, middle and pinky fingers across the trackpad? will the mac book squeal with delight?
I see alot of greasy screens in the future..
Just because they claim it in a patent doesn't mean they're going to implement it anytime soon, or ever. A big part of patenting is making your claims broad enough so there's no room for anyone else to patent anything remotely like it. Sad but true. Also sad is that the Patent and Trademark office goes along with it. They leave it to the courts to sort out all the conflicting claims.
The excessive broadness of Apple's claims also brings them into some highly disputatious territory, where they could be said to be patenting not just a technology, but the entire "concept" of gestural computing, and, even more controversial, the natural human movements ("gestures") that go with it. Only technologies are patentable, not concepts. Natural human movements are explicitly excluded from what is patentable, if I'm not mistaken.
That said, I wonder why they didn't patent the "Mork" gesture. That would have been so useful for the forthcoming iPod Nano-Nano. Yuk, yuk, yuk.
use of "disputatious" FTW!
err... i tot we should design things to make our life easy... but this one? how about those unfortunate people who is handicapped and physically disabled due to finger injury? i do wish Apple and other PC maker can come out something practical, for the good of all.
wow Ali G posts on engadget?
Strange that people think stuff is new. I, and many others, have been using these sorts of gestures for several years. The base of this stuff comes from fingerworks, which is now out of business, and the IP now belongs to Apple. If you would like to see samples of dozens of gestures see http://www.fingerworks.com/userguides.html
i like it if easy to remember
sony already patented a 5 finger touch (plus stylus) panel 3-4 months back.
this new "war" of touch panels is gonna be awesome :)
These multi-touch gestures are very easy to remember. They quickly second nature with muscle memory. I've been using gestures on my FingerWorks TouchStream keyboard.
Apple bought the Fingerworks technology but dropped the product. Evil Apple! Now I worry every day that my 5-plus-year-old keyboard will fail and I'll have to regress to using an old-fashioned keyboard. I can't live without gestures!
What about amputees, the deformed, and other strawmen? With Apple holding a gun to their head, they will be unable to choose one of the dozens of other makes and models available on the open market.
It amazes me how geeks hate any product not designed for them with such passion. I'd love to hear how the typical member of the Engadget crowd reacts to new product announcements from Tampax, Efferdent, or Playskool whenever "Family Guy" goes to commercial.