Apple's latest patent probably isn't tablet related, but feel free to speculate anyway
By Tim Stevens 
posted January 8th 2010 3:23AM
posted January 8th 2010 3:23AM
Yeah, we're pretty sick of the iSlate talk too, so we'll completely refrain from predicting any possible future applications for Apple's latest patent, a new type of LCD circuitry that better integrates capacitive touch by somehow integrating touch sensitivity into the display pixels themselves. It's pretty obscure, techy stuff, but the result should be less circuitry within the display in theory boosting efficiency and, notably, reducing thickness. You know what that means: even thinner tablets. (Sorry, we couldn't resist.)
If this iSlate ever does come out, it will boast some nice technological advancements.
@iFargle
Indeed.
But will it blend?
@uShak Unless the Apple Tablet that will be unveiled is going to release some game-changing features (via the 2 patented tech they proclaimed) then people would still want to grab this one. But expect that there are users who has a threshold for money and 1 grand for a tablet isn't so cheap. Anyway as for the real score. It seems we will be seeing the official apple tablet announcement on 27-28th, along with some beta testing iPhone OS 4.0 SDK goodies. iSlate Details: http://bit.ly/islate-specs-hoax-and-official-details
@uShak I would love to see it blend
So this means the apple tablet we know nothing about and is a figment of our imaginations is getting thinner due to this patent?
@James
maybe.
what is this "iSlate" you speak of
@cswright its some thing you put on you roof to keep the rain out the i is just to be trendy
Gizmodo posted this news yesterday and only shows up on Engadget today. Late as usual.
@HighestRanked Yeah it's not like they have the year's largest electronics event going on right now or anything. How dare they be late with this extremely important news that changes everything.
Unlike Giz, Engadget are spending their time reporting on actual gadgets, rather than unsubstansiated rumours (crazy as that sounds)
@flux Gizmodo is also at CES and the quality of their reporting is leaps and bounds better. At any rate, CES or not, a good deal of news or rummors always appear on Giz first and way way later on Eng.
I need to change my underwear... I hope it will b OLED, Apple, u always please me, let's do it again
@phx
Oled means you can't go outside, right? Meh.
@Wesscoast are you calling phx a ginger
So anyway, whoever said that there is no difference in hardware (off the shelf parts) between Macs and PCs is once again proven wrong. Apple has a long history in engineering hardware.
@HighestRanked Yeah, take that.. uh.. whoever!
Or how 'bout you quit trollin'?
@HighestRanked
You realize a patent requires no prior R&D? This patent doesn't mean squat about what Apple does develop.
Apple has a long history of systems engineering. Their history of engineering Hardware ended when they switched over to Intel CPUs.
@M3 "Their history of engineering Hardware ended when they switched over to Intel CPUs."
ahahah, really? Ever heard of Apple and Intel's co-op on this new optic interface called LightPeak coming to computers this year? No? hmm, How about Apple's next-generation video interface called mini DisplayPort? No? maybe you heard of Apple's multi-touch "button-less" glass trackpads? No? How about something called the multi-touch MagicMouse? No? Are you aware Apple engineers it's own motherboards (logic boards)? Apple has recently returned to designing micro-chips after acquiring PA Semi. You can look up the rest.
Since you've proven yourself clueless, I'll clue you in something else too. Prior to the switch to Intel (and never before either), Apple never ever developed their own CPUs. They used IBM's PowerPC and before that they used Motorola's CPUs.
Oh n why in f does the iPhone app for engadget not recognize existing users...
This doesn't really make sense. Pixels need to be small to look good, but capacitive sensor pads work best if they are larger, about 1/4 the size of your finger. So interlacing them like this doesn't make sense. The capacitive sensor are only about 6x the size of an RGB subpixel here (about the size of two pixels).
I love how everyone is pretty much convinced this is a real thing when there is no evidence for it. The January event hasn't been announced yet. Apple patents hundreds of ideas it may never use. I'm a Mac user but I'd honestly love it if Steve Jobs came out on stage on the 26th, announced Arrandale MBPs and left, giving everyone the finger as he leaves.
@Ampersandbox That would be epic win ..
@Ampersandbox
There is an Apple Tablet coming. That much is true. The iPhone itself is based off the R&D on Tablets Apple has done over the past few years, but the hardware wasn't quite where they needed it to be to ensure the thinness and the power they needed for a Tablet till now. ARM processors are packing some major power these days, with very little effect on the battery. Not to mention mobile GPUs that are doing a great job for mobile gaming devices.
Plus, an employee or two at Apple has been pumping information out, while it may be scarce in details it's there. Which is why Dell and HP and every other PC maker was adamant about showing off their own tablet device at CES, which by no coincidence was named a "slate" type device. This is merely an attempt to leech onto the success that the "iSlate/iTablet" will have. Cause let's face it, no other company around gets hype up more so than Apple.
On top it says "MacBook-Tablet", so maybe Apple will introduce
a small MacBook with touchscreen. I don't think they will
unveil any sort of "tablet" that would compete with the iPod touch.
@sottil
Totally, even before this article, what with the Macbook only having one model anymore it's pretty obvious Apple has both Macbook and iBook.
There is some serious cluelessness in the tech media or some serious cash making them not think
So this is Apple's way around the RIM unsurepress, which while lame (from personal use) is the first haptic based feedback system direct on screen and should be lauded as such.
As an aside, if the mythical unicorn comes down from Loki and showers us all in Apple pills then why IS it a slate and why IS it called islate, itablet etc...
Apple, since the iPod and various trademark tussles is surely just buying up names to block their use. That and...
Unibody, multitouch, MacBook Air and the unmentioned fact the Macbook is now a range of one product where Apple -tends- to work in 3's for each product.
Why the heck wouldn't they call it the Macbook or even the iBook. An ultra thin clamshell that's all screen, seamless in the middle, orientation sensing between book and laptop modes with multitouch.
This would make it 5" or such when closed, easy to slip in bag or large pocket. Use in vertical/book mode for content consumption and horizontal/latop mode with keyboard...
Obviously I know nothing like the rest of us, but the tech pundit Imagination on this subject is so blank. It's a book, a slate and a laptop all in one.
The tablet format has proved a fail over n over again, hard to hold, hard to type one handed, hard to carry, screen easily damaged. Why would SJ release another tablet. Consider when the Air came out, here comes the even more Air
It's a freakin Mac Book if its anything
@Cy Starkman
to be honest, the first question I asked when I heard about the 'iSlate' was, "Why?". Where is the demand for slate devices? There's a demand for smartphones, for netbooks and laptops, but slates? They've never seemed practical in their current form. I'm fairly sure that it's either not going to be a slate (in the traditional sense), or it's going to be an iFlop.
@plastik
Agreed
I ended up with iflop tonight, very disapointing. Will console myself with some rendering
@plastik
There isnt.
All of this has been manufactured by the tech media to grease the skids for a rumored device from Apple. And right on schedule many tech outlets have been needlessly attacking the whole product segment to try to again, manufacture a dire need for a Apple version of a tablet computer, to "save" us from supposedly bad computers. Completely, or conveniently, forgetting that an Apple tablet would suffer from the same issues that make tablets a niche device.
The whole thing reeks of astroturf, and if anything has completely discredited many of these folks. Engadget has at least shown some restraint and professionalism.
@LAY ahahah, you still don't get it Lay? or is it that you don't want to understand? According to you, the last 10 years of tablets have not been a failure? Bill Gates at the time imagined a grand future for tablets but as the years have proven, it looks like his approach did not get it right. As a result tablets ended up relegated to niche markets for very few, certain applications but of little use for the general consumer market. That's what the tech media is highlighting.
Now, IF and IF Apple is going to launch a tablet, they will most certainly not repeat the same mistakes of the last 10 years. Therefore it would be logical to take a different approach to developing a tablet that the consumer market in general would find desirable.
But of course, to the MS/Apple-hater crowd this is only unprofessional, biased, manufactured conspiracy and black helicopters. To which say, ahahahahahah! How dare the tech media not like Microsoft and like Apple instead! Ahahahah!
Wouldn't it be funny if all the iSlate hype made all these other manufacturers run out and develop tablets in a bid to beat Apple to marktet and then SJ decides to use the tech to dos something completely different or even nothing at all!!!
just a thought!
@jamiesim they are already doing it
I REALY DO THINK APPLE IS MAKING A NETBOOK NOT A ISLATE
@ZIXTO
MY KEYBOARD IS STUCK ON CAPS LOCK TOO, DO YOU KNOW HOW TO FIX IT???
this is the iphone all over again apple puts out a vague rumor and then take all the ideas from the press speculating a but what it will be and what they wont and put it all together and you end up with product that people wont
my names engadget and the iphone was my idea
@steve jobs clone no3 really??? because we all know how everyone had the iPhone figured out down to the last bit right? Here is how your comment fails big time. Read this:
http://gizmodo.com/5435723/the-iphone-wouldve-sucked-if-the-rumors-were-true
Every patent we've seen so far doesn't have to be in the iSlate.
Please confirm.
Maybe iSlate iS late...
Once again, Engadget is unable to grasp the basic difference between a "patent" granting its assignee actual rights, and a "published patent application" (as is the case here) that grants the owner NOTHING. Please stop calling these "Apple patents" when they are just "published patent applications."
@Mikey M Engadget already patented that
I think that's just an antenna.
@kenc3dan
ditto. It could have something to improve antenna design or increase the snr of the capacitive screen around the edges
"You know what that means: even thinner tablets."
and breakable....
I like the supposed 4-button trackpad in their picture.
I'm so sick of Apple's patents. Enough!
Let's just toss out the use of the word tablet from now on and just say "those keyboard-less personal computer laptop thingies, without keyboards" (had to throw in that extra wo keyboards in case anyone was unclear by the end of the phrase).Tablet & Slate are just too suggestive of less useful technologies.