Macbook touch screen

[Dr Strange Lulz]

Sorry if this has already been covered before but I ran a search for macbook touch screen and just came up with a bunch of threads with people talking about the theorized Mactouch tablet.

I was talking about the next generation Macbooks coming out latter this year with my brother and talking about possible features.

One of the ideas he mentioned that I thought sounded awesome was the idea that they may replace the trackpad that are standard in most laptops with a version of the touch screen seen in the iTouch and iPhone.

Then when reading through old product reviews and the evolution of the trackpad it seemed logical that this would be the next step.

Apple has slowly been adding more and more features to the trackpad, careful not to saturate users too quickly with new features.

But now they have up to four finger swipe, the whole trackpad acting as a button that can also be programmed to act as right click, and the vast majority of macbook users would also likely have a iTouch or iPhone or at least have experience with them, making this the perfect time to introduce this new feature.

Since you would likely be able to program its features through the macbook you could customize it almost anyway you wanted to have multiple buttons and features. Also show display information.

So what do you guys think? Practical or useless window dressing? Likely to be out this year?

[Ireland]

Price. Would burn more battery life. Would blur the lines between the tablet and the laptop, which I suspect they wouldn't want to do for quite some time.

I think the next innovation (after the next iPhone bump) will be this full-on tablet. Then later, maybe a year later Apple's notebooks may evolve to have the swivel mechanism, come convertible tablet thing-y-me-Bob. So, for those reasons and more, I don't see what you're talking about happening, we've discussed it before here.

[Dr Strange Lulz]

I can't see it uping the price by to much.

All it would need to do is swap out the old trackpad for the new touch screen, it doesnt need any of the other built in hardware that the iTouch or iPhone has since it will run off the Macs hardware. All it would need is some software to run it.

And I can't see a 3x5 touch screen burning a sigfnifigant amount more energy over all.

And this is just my opinion, but considering how we have seen more and more features added to the trackpad over the last few generations I think this is a far more likely next step then turning the macbook into a quasi mactouch.

This is tried and trued technology while the mactouch is a totally untested concept.

[Ireland]

..while the mactouch is a totally untested concept.

Totally untested. You can almost guarantee you are wrong. The iPhone is the testing ground.

[appleeinstein]

Totally untested. You can almost guarantee you are wrong. The iPhone is the testing ground.
Well, to give Dr. Strange credit, the iPhone has shown that the multitouch slate form factor (even at 3.5") is perfect for information consumption and media, but sucks for doing any other computer-y things (like writing or editing).

But I don't necessarily understand what added functionality a glass multitouchscreen trackpad would give (compared to the glass multitouch trackpad that the MacBooks have now. Why would you want to focus on a tiny screen when you have a 13" screen to work with? I'm not sure I understand.

[Dr Strange Lulz]

It wouldnt be to convay information persay unless it was little images for battery life ect.

It would be for added functionality. With the right software you could program it to function almost anyway you wanted it to. Hot keys, split funtion, interaction, turn it into a number pad for when doing a lot of numer crunching.

The possibilities are endless. Its not that it is a second screen so much as it is a highly adaptablr and customisable trackpad.

[brucep]

It wouldnt be to convay information persay unless it was little images for battery life ect.

It would be for added functionality. With the right software you could program it to function almost anyway you wanted it to. Hot keys, split funtion, interaction, turn it into a number pad for when doing a lot of numer crunching.

The possibilities are endless. Its not that it is a second screen so much as it is a highly adaptablr and customisable trackpad.

wow
why not????:
so i may add
instead of your improved track pad/
///// WE MAKE the whole bottom all glass with
the i/phone like key board
.one big track pad gaming drawing pad .. full video play back and all the tablet like stuff. this could work .
the top screen also does what the bottom screen can