“Several Apple employees have collectively filed a patent request for a wide touchpad on a noteboook computer, where the palm rest areas of the portable would formed a said touchpad,” Prince McLean reports for AppleInsider. “In the filing made on August 25, 2004 and published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office on Thursday, Apple employees describe several examples of a ‘wide touchpad and keyboard’ that would allow a user to interact with the display screen and enter data.”
“One description says the wide touchpad may be a cursor control device having the capabilities of conventional computer mouse, such as the ability to point, drag, tap, and double tap objects on a graphical user interface, as well as more general purposes such as scrolling, panning, zooming, and rotating images on display screen,” McLean reports. “The patent filing — which is credited to several known Apple employees such as Bas Ording and Bartley Andre — goes on to list dozens of possible behaviors for a wide touchpad, including a device that would support ‘multiple or two-handed input.'”
More info in the full article here.
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I’m applying for a touch organ patent. All you folks that masturbate will now owe me money.
I would send you money, iDon’t, but I’ve already gone blind…
Sounds about the size of an iPod’s area
damn – i’m gonna need a second morgage idon’t
This sounds it can be a patent that will see actual implementation in a real product. At the same time, it seems like a natural extension to Apple’s trackpad innovactions like 2-finger scrolling.
BTW, I was reading in another forum somewhere, but someone suggested a very logical and natural way to implement right-click without adding a 2nd button. Why not make it a “right-click” if you place 2 fingers on the trackpad and click? A “left-click” would simply be 1 finger and a click, and like Mighty Mouse, you would have to go into Trackpad preferences to turn this feature on.
Who else thinks this would be a great idea?
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seriously.. I don’t understand the big deal about not having a 2nd button on the track pad.
it takes 3 or maybe 10 minutes to get accustomed to using your pinky to hold the control key to simulate the right click.
“[…] including a device that would support ‘multiple or two-handed input.'”
Most of us only have two hands. I don’t really want to have to bring a friend along for an interface that requires more than two hands…
😀
A wide trackpad with multiple input enabled would be a sweet device for a DJ mixing interface in iTunes. Imagine using on-screen sliders simultaneously to mix between tracks. Cool!
You can’t patent masterbation, it’s already in the public domain.
^^^ my grandmother told me that was rude to do on the subway…
NewType,
Your suggestion is a good one. iScroll already does it to great effect. The one problem I have is that the cursor tends to drift due to the minute movements of your index and middle fingers while your thumb reaches for the button.
I’m sure cursor drift is just a matter of refining the algorithms. For example, on the scrolling trackpad, if you have 2 fingers on the surface, that automatically locks the cursor from moving.
One easy solution would be to use 3 fingers. If the trackpad detects 3 fingers on the surface, then it locks out both cursor movement and scrolling, along a perfect “right click”
CircleJerk®