Apple's multi-touch technology seen spawning "mega-platform"

[AppleInsider]

Financial experts at UBS Investment Research say they believe Apple Inc. is developing a "mega-platform" based around its recently introduced multi-touch display technology that will facilitate broad growth opportunities through an assortment of future products.

In a research note issued Tuesday, analyst Ben Reitzes encouraged his clients to look past the minute details of the initial iPhone and focus on the power that lies in the 'unannounced' multi-touch ecosystem that will eventually find its way into several products across the company's product portfolio.

"We believe this 'Mega-Platform' could help Apple become an 'open-ended' growth story once again with a logical chronology of new products for years to come," the analyst wrote.

Reitzes, who maintains a Buy rating on shares of the Cupertino-based company, said the firm is in a similar position with the multi-touch platform as it was in 2001-2003 when it launched its first iPods with the popular click wheels. "At that time," he explained, "it was perhaps irrelevant to focus on the details around the initial iPods – things like capacity and the relatively high $399 price point."

The UBS analyst said he expects the new platform to become prevalent in each of the consumer electronics maker's major hardware products within 3-5 years, possibly sparking touchscreen Macs later this holiday season or sometime in 2008. Among his expectations are touch-screen iMacs, as well as "tablet-like" notebook devices that provide basic computing without the need for a keyboard or stylus if the user desires to keep the device closed.

"We also expect new touchscreen video iPods, more phones and possibly even TVs in the future," he added. "With regard to the iPhone, we expect Apple to have a full line of phones from $150 to $600 available for purchase at multiple retailers in several geographies within three years, just like it did for iPods."

Attempting to quantify the potential effect of the mega-platform, Reitzes estimated the resulting array of multi-touch devices could add about $1.00 -- $0.35 from iPhones, $0.30 from Macs, $0.06 from ultra-portables and $0.33 from iPods -- to Apple's annualized per-share earnings power at some point during fiscal 2009.

"This math does not even include the added benefits of improving retail profitability and catalyzing the services and accessories businesses like the iPod did," he told clients.

While Reitzes did not use Tuesday's research note to alter his Apple model, he noted that his current estimates of $3.20 per-share earnings on sales of $24.6 billion may prove to be conservative.

UBS maintains a $124 price target on shares of the company.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[saleski]

immature...FIRST POST.

[iconsumer]

please, please, Mac Tablet Pro

[ChevalierMalFet]

"we believe that now that Apple has introduced a new Hammer, everything looks like a new nail."

That is all.

[aegisdesign]

Anyone who gets their greasy fingers on my Mac's screen will feel the wrath of my shatterproof plastic ruler across their knuckles!

Touch screen Macs - Noooooooooooooooo!

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by aegisdesign

Anyone who gets their greasy fingers on my Mac's screen will feel the wrath of my shatterproof plastic ruler across their knuckles!

Touch screen Macs - Noooooooooooooooo!

I think we'll have to wait and see how they handle it with the iPhone. I hope they have some sort of smudge and scratch resistant coating.

[Clive At Five]

To be honest, I don't see an immediate need for this in desktop models. Who wants to reach across the desk for hours? What about people who use Macs for 8 hours a day at work? Not a good idea.

Tablets, definitely. Portables.......... maybe, though that often has the same problem as desktops... reaching out in front of you. To make a touch-interactive UI really usable, the device has to be lightweight and easy to touch. I know it sounds stupid, but not all computers are easy to touch!

-Clive

[jonyp]

Come to think of it, everything about OS X looks like it was made to be compatible with a Multi-Touch UI. For instance, OpenGL, Core Animation, Expose, Genie effect, spring-loaded folders, the OS X Dock, etc. Leopard is even supposed to have capabilities to run resolution independent applications, which, from what I understand, means that you can resize the zoom of an application window the same way you resize the window dimensions -- and that's pretty key for Multi-touch UI. My guess is that they've been working towards this for years.

Here's a good example if you're having trouble imagining Multi-Touch UI in OS X:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JcSu7h-I40

[aegisdesign]

Originally Posted by JeffDM

I think we'll have to wait and see how they handle it with the iPhone. I hope they have some sort of smudge and scratch resistant coating.

I don't mind that on a phone. You can wipe them on your shirt easy enough. It's a little trickier with a 24" iMac.

Maybe they'll expand into OQO like devices (and I'd buy one in a heartbeat) but I think the analyst is somewhat off the mark with touchscreen iMacs.

[Abster2core]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

Financial experts at UBS Investment Research say they believe Apple Inc. is developing a "mega-platform" based around its recently introduced multi-touch display technology that will facilitate broad growth opportunities through an assortment of future products.

Perhaps a few of us have not seen Jeff Han's presentation. http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalks....cfm?key=j_han

Its coming and it's Apple that is bringing it to us. Check out the keyboard. It doesn't mean that it will replace the mechanical today, but I do see a way to marry them both. Certainly, it appears that Apple just may re-invent the computer. Again.

Perhaps a few shares of Windex are also in order.

[Maestro64]

The only thing to take way from this is "Financial experts at UBS Investment Research" said?

What do Financial Experts know about technology and usuability and so on. They are guessing that this technolgies will be used everywhere. I doubt it very much, it works in some applications where gestering is natural to do but applicate a technology wronging will kill it really fast.

[bdj21ya]

I think the analysts are getting excited like little kids on Christmas over this multi-touch thing. I think we have yet to see how well Apple has solved the smudging and scratching problems inherent in a touch system. Also, how much does multitouch even matter to a non-handheld device. I own a convertible tablet notebook on which I never used the tablet features because they were just a lot slower than a keyboard and mouse. Also, the mechanical feedback is really a great thing with keyboards and mouses. That's one reason why I (and I'm sure many of you) would never use the mighty mouse. I appreciate the audio and tactile feedback I get from distinct mouse buttons.

That said, if anyone could find a way to make this tech useful in a larger device (I think it's great for ipods or a phone)

[Maestro64]

Originally Posted by JeffDM

I think we'll have to wait and see how they handle it with the iPhone. I hope they have some sort of smudge and scratch resistant coating.

If people look closely at job's demo of the iphone you can see finger smudges arcoss the screen when he was using it. As far as I am aware there is no way to stop oils from your fingers from getting on the displace and building up over time.

[Maestro64]

Originally Posted by bdj21ya

Also, the mechanical feedback is really a great thing with keyboards and mouses. That's one reason why I (and I'm sure many of you) would never use the mighty mouse. I appreciate the audio and tactile feedback I get from distinct mouse buttons.

This is true, our generation was raised on tactile feeback, all the games and learning we all have done was based on this principle. In order for mutli-touch and visual feedback to be intuitive your whole learning experience has to be based on it. The younger generation could take serious advantage of this. It maybe less useful to the rest of us.

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by Clive At Five

To be honest, I don't see an immediate need for this in desktop models. Who wants to reach across the desk for hours? What about people who use Macs for 8 hours a day at work? Not a good idea.

Tablets, definitely. Portables.......... maybe, though that often has the same problem as desktops... reaching out in front of you. To make a touch-interactive UI really usable, the device has to be lightweight and easy to touch. I know it sounds stupid, but not all computers are easy to touch!

What I envision is something like Jeff Han's approach where the screen is nearly flat on the desk but slanted a bit toward the user. So I agree in one sense, I don't see it working on a display that is vertical except for brief intervals. I want something like that, but not at the Cintiq's pricing, which is the closest commercial equivalent, but that isn't multi-touch.

[Abster2core]

Forget the Windex?

"FingerWorks products need no on-screen contact to work. A FingerWorks keyboard senses the motion of fingers in the air, allowing users to "cut and paste" or zoom in and out with such simple gestures as "pinching" or "closing the lid of a jar."(1)

Further good reading: "iPhone and Jeff Han's Multi touch?
Yes, the iPhone uses Multi-touch technology. * FingerWorks has been bought by Apple in June 2006. * Jeff Han has NOT been hired by Apple to work on the iPhone There were rumors that Apple had tried (unsuccessfully) to hire Jeff at one point to work on the launch of the iphone. NY Times techie David Pogue even asked Steve Jobs about him on the day of the launch. Here's Jeff Hans' response on the iPhone: "The iPhone is absolutely gorgeous, and I've always said, if there ever were a company to bring this kind of technology to the consumer market, it's Apple. I just wish it were a bit bigger so I could really use both of my hands."(2)

As for that tactile feeling, perhaps a marrying of the Multi-touch technology with a single injection-moulded silicone keyboard such as the topside of a Indukey (3) could do.


1. http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/p...0357/-1/NEWS01
2. http://multi-touchscreen.com/
3. http://www.indukey.com/teaser/teaser/360/detail.html

P.S. For those of us who remember the uproar from the likes of IBM when the Mac was introduced in 1984. "The mouse is dead (or such)." Thank goodness, Steve didn't listen.

[donebylee]

I admit that if Apple came out with an iMac that allowed you to detach the screen from the stand, which would be the dock/charger unit, and to use it like you do a Wacom Cintiq I would be very, very interested in that. But it would have to include a pen, like the Wacom pen.

Other than that, how about an Apple universal remote that uses the multi-touch screen technology? The screen would change depending on whether you were using it with your Mac, AppleTV, iPod stereo or whatever, giving context sensitive visual controls for each device. Throw in support for select non-Apple products such as HDTVs and HD DVD/Blue Ray players, etc...

[aegisdesign]

Originally Posted by bdj21ya

Also, the mechanical feedback is really a great thing with keyboards and mouses. That's one reason why I (and I'm sure many of you) would never use the mighty mouse. I appreciate the audio and tactile feedback I get from distinct mouse buttons.

Which is presumably why the mighty mouse has a speaker that emits clicks for the scroll wheel and the shell physically moves when you press on it with a nice positive click. In the older Pro Mice, they even came with adjustable click pressure.

Lifting your left finger to click the right 'button' seems to be the only thing some people don't quite get immediately but it soon becomes second nature IME.

I also switch off the side buttons. They're great most of the time but if you concentrate on drawing on Photoshop and the Dashboard suddenly appears because you've squeezed the mouse too hard it gets annoying quickly.

Try one someday for longer than the 15 minutes many people have attempted in an Apple Store.

[TednDi]

Originally Posted by donebylee

I would be very, very interested in that. But it would have to include a pen, like the Wacom pen.

Apple still has inkwell built into OS X

[bdj21ya]

Originally Posted by aegisdesign

Which is presumably why the mighty mouse has a speaker that emits clicks for the scroll wheel and the shell physically moves when you press on it with a nice positive click. In the older Pro Mice, they even came with adjustable click pressure.

Lifting your left finger to click the right 'button' seems to be the only thing some people don't quite get immediately but it soon becomes second nature IME.

I also switch off the side buttons. They're great most of the time but if you concentrate on drawing on Photoshop and the Dashboard suddenly appears because you've squeezed the mouse too hard it gets annoying quickly.

Try one someday for longer than the 15 minutes many people have attempted in an Apple Store.

I was actually refering to the lack of tactile feedback between the left and right mouse buttons. I don't move my fingers to right click, I just use the fingers that are already over there. The other big problem with the mouse is that it is too flat, and uncomfortable for me to hold.

[pmjoe]

Originally Posted by Clive At Five

To be honest, I don't see an immediate need for this in desktop models. Who wants to reach across the desk for hours? What about people who use Macs for 8 hours a day at work? Not a good idea.

Like your keyboard and mouse are going to suddenly break if you had a touchscreen? I don't think the boss is going to fall for that one, if you're looking for a disability check.

[cnocbui]

Originally Posted by JeffDM

I think we'll have to wait and see how they handle it with the iPhone. I hope they have some sort of smudge and scratch resistant coating.

When you buy your Apple touch screen device, you will note it will comes with a syringe and needle for you to inject yourself with their patented DNA altering concotion. After the injection, your DNA will be subtly altered so that your fingers no longer exude grease to mar the gleaming perfection of the Apple touch screen device you purchased.

Some users have reported that skin elsewhere has also stopped lubricating. Gone are the shiny noses that TV makeup artists have been battling for decades. Slightly more worrying, though, have been some unconfirmed reports that other bodily lubricants involved in reproductive processes have also been affected.

An Apple spokesperson has said that these issues had been noted and that the Apple store now has a great new line of Apple skin moisturising products and ancillary lubricants available.

[cnocbui]

Originally Posted by donebylee

Other than that, how about an Apple universal remote that uses the multi-touch screen technology? The screen would change depending on whether you were using it with your Mac, AppleTV, iPod stereo or whatever, giving context sensitive visual controls for each device. Throw in support for select non-Apple products such as HDTVs and HD DVD/Blue Ray players, etc...

It's called the One for all Kameleon remote: http://www.oneforall-int.com/

[macFanDave]

Originally Posted by aegisdesign

Anyone who gets their greasy fingers on my Mac's screen will feel the wrath of my shatterproof plastic ruler across their knuckles!

Touch screen Macs - Noooooooooooooooo!

Don't worry -- natural selection will solve the problem in a generation or two. Males with greasy fingers won't be able to read their address books on their iPhones, but males with non-greasy fingers will and be able to contact the females, have sex, propagate their genes, and we will be on our way to evolving into a species of dry-fingered homo sapiens who have become the optimal users of the most important tool invented in millenia.

We just may need to start a new geologic era: the iPhonozoic!

[EagerDragon]

Originally Posted by Clive At Five

To be honest, I don't see an immediate need for this in desktop models. Who wants to reach across the desk for hours? What about people who use Macs for 8 hours a day at work? Not a good idea.

Tablets, definitely. Portables.......... maybe, though that often has the same problem as desktops... reaching out in front of you. To make a touch-interactive UI really usable, the device has to be lightweight and easy to touch. I know it sounds stupid, but not all computers are easy to touch!

-Clive

I do not think that they would remove your ability to use a mouse and keyboard. Ussing multitouch would simply be another way of interacting. The controls on the screen would change based on the application.

Imagine a musician creating music while standing with the screen about 6 inches away and as he touches different regions of the screen different instruments play, their sound is modified and shorten/lengthen based on the gestures he uses. I don't ever remember something like this in the market.

Yes, nobody is going to work like a drone typing by using a touch screen for 8 or 12 hours.

But I can see someone painting, drawing, in general creating, with a large screen in front of them (specialy while standing) while they interact with their virtual canvas.

Think different, think creative and not mundane uses like typing, or writing code.

As long as it is an alternate inferface with standard keyboard and mouse still available for mundane tasks, I see this as a huge boost.

Think canvas for music, colors, effects, drawing, painting, animating objects, animating models, organizing, brain storming.

[KD86]

I must admit I am skeptical about this technology in desktops HOWEVER... lots of people are talking about fingerprints and scratched screens, etc. I thought of that too immediately and that's because it's an obvious issue that results from touching screens. So I hardly think Apple would overlook such an obvious issue and I'm sure they would coat the screen to avoid scratches and fingerprints.

[aegisdesign]

Originally Posted by bdj21ya

I was actually refering to the lack of tactile feedback between the left and right mouse buttons. I don't move my fingers to right click, I just use the fingers that are already over there.

You get used to just lifting the left finger a couple of mm in no time to the point I do it with non Apple mice now. There's plenty of tactile feedback. It moves maybe 2mm.

Originally Posted by bdj21ya

The other big problem with the mouse is that it is too flat, and uncomfortable for me to hold.

And I find most of the current Logitech and Microsoft mice give me a pain in my ulnar nerve after a while so each to their own. I know people who get on with grasping a mouse like a ball in their palm but I generally prefer fingertips with my wrist on the desk. My favourite mouse of all time was 1987's Microsoft Mouse. I can remember getting that at work at the time and nothing has really lived up to it since. I still have two. Apple's latest wireless Mighty Mouse running with only one battery comes close though.

http://www.ideo.com/portfolio/re.asp?x=12328

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by aegisdesign

Lifting your left finger to click the right 'button' seems to be the only thing some people don't quite get immediately but it soon becomes second nature IME.

It's not that hard, but doubling the number of fingers that move to do the same thing is the bad part, it can easily make repetitive strain worse.

I also switch off the side buttons. They're great most of the time but if you concentrate on drawing on Photoshop and the Dashboard suddenly appears because you've squeezed the mouse too hard it gets annoying quickly.

Try one someday for longer than the 15 minutes many people have attempted in an Apple Store.

I have one and I've tried a few in the stores, the amount of side force needed to activate the side buttons seems to vary a lot between mice. That's not a good sign.

Despite, I haven't subjected my Mighty Mouse to a hanging, but I end up switch-handing with a Wacom tablet mouse on one side of the keyboard, and MM on the other.

[aegisdesign]

Originally Posted by KD86

So I hardly think Apple would overlook such an obvious issue and I'm sure they would coat the screen to avoid scratches and fingerprints.

Either that or some form of manipulating the RDF using finger guestures in front of your in built iSight.

Here's the gesture for replying to your boss when asked to do overtime in Mail.app...



Of course it has to be localized. Here's the italian version...

[melgross]

As I've been saying.

he noted that his current estimates of $3.20 per-share earnings on sales of $24.6 billion may prove to be conservative.

I would like to see Multi-Touch on monitors. I don't see a problem. Don't people wash their hands? I can move my finger across my screen without getting grease over it, and I imagine that others can do so as well. Companies are quick to take advantage of these innovations. I can see one coming out with some small iten you put on your desk, or stick to the monitor, that people with sweaty or greasy fingers could quickly swipe across before they touched the screen.

When you use the phone, you are usually in transit, and may not have the cleanest fingers. But sitting in front of your machine at home, or in your place of business, you have no such excuse.

Multi-Touch sounds like a very useful feature. I can imagine using it while working with many programs. Moving a page or image around on the screen would be easier with a finger than it would be with a mouse or trackball. While it's also easy using a pen on my graphics tablet, most people don't use them for their work.

[TrevorD]

I think a lot of people are missing the point of having a multitouch display on a desktop or laptop. People compare it to moving the hands from the mouse all the way up to the screen to do a simple click, or taking a stylus to do clicks all over the screen, neither of which is a step up from what we have today. But the difference here is the "multi" part of multitouch.

Easy examples have already been pointed out. Resizing or rotating images and webpages with two-finger pinch and rotate movements are much more accurate and natural than moving sliders or little boxes on an object's corner. And what about sound and video editing? There are tons of cases where being able to manipulate multiple controls on the screen at once would be a godsend, and are impossible to do currently without dedicated hardware.

For instance, you could move a bunch of sliders in a sound editing app all at once. Or how about that little keyboard in Garageband? Just blow it up to finger-tapping size and beginner users have a fully functional keyboard. It's not as good as dedicated hardware, but Garageband is made for beginners who may not have all the goodies yet.

Seriously, multitouch could be the beginning of a whole new way to interact with your computer. Forget all those single-click alternatives you've already tried because they're just awkward replacements for the mouse that's already on your desk. With multitouch, you now have 10 fingers able to do 10 things on your screen all at once, all with direct manipulation techniques that UI designers go bonkers for. If this is built into Leopard with easy-to-code APIs, and all new Macs provide support for it, we could see some amazing stuff that no one here has even imagined. Totally revamped iLife and pro apps would be just the beginning.

I think the "multitouch is useless on desktops" statement is in the same vein as "Apple shouldn't waste its time on an MP3 player".

[SpinDrift]

Originally Posted by TrevorD

I think a lot of people are missing the point of having a multitouch display on a desktop or laptop. People compare it to moving the hands from the mouse all the way up to the screen to do a simple click, or taking a stylus to do clicks all over the screen, neither of which is a step up from what we have today. But the difference here is the "multi" part of multitouch.

Easy examples have already been pointed out. Resizing or rotating images and webpages with two-finger pinch and rotate movements are much more accurate and natural than moving sliders or little boxes on an object's corner. And what about sound and video editing? There are tons of cases where being able to manipulate multiple controls on the screen at once would be a godsend, and are impossible to do currently without dedicated hardware.

For instance, you could move a bunch of sliders in a sound editing app all at once. Or how about that little keyboard in Garageband? Just blow it up to finger-tapping size and beginner users have a fully functional keyboard. It's not as good as dedicated hardware, but Garageband is made for beginners who may not have all the goodies yet.

Seriously, multitouch could be the beginning of a whole new way to interact with your computer. Forget all those single-click alternatives you've already tried because they're just awkward replacements for the mouse that's already on your desk. With multitouch, you now have 10 fingers able to do 10 things on your screen all at once, all with direct manipulation techniques that UI designers go bonkers for. If this is built into Leopard with easy-to-code APIs, and all new Macs provide support for it, we could see some amazing stuff that no one here has even imagined. Totally revamped iLife and pro apps would be just the beginning.

I think the "multitouch is useless on desktops" statement is in the same vein as "Apple shouldn't waste its time on an MP3 player".

Agreed.

[Abster2core]

aegisdesign

Have you not looked at the Jeff Han links above? You don't have to touch the screen at all. Just hover above it.

[aegisdesign]

Originally Posted by Abster2core

aegisdesign

Have you not looked at the Jeff Han links above? You don't have to touch the screen at all. Just hover above it.

Yes, way before the iPhone announcement even. He's touching the screen.

[aegisdesign]

Originally Posted by TrevorD

With multitouch, you now have 10 fingers able to do 10 things on your screen all at once, all with direct manipulation techniques that UI designers go bonkers for. If this is built into Leopard with easy-to-code APIs, and all new Macs provide support for it, we could see some amazing stuff that no one here has even imagined. Totally revamped iLife and pro apps would be just the beginning.

You're totally right. However, just not on MY screen.

If you want to give me a second screen to put greasy fingerprints on for apps that would benefit from that kind of UI, then fine, but most of the time I'm reading/writing text and don't want fingers anywhere near it. And then, when I'm editing images, having big smudges on them isn't conducive to getting quality images, particularly if I'm looking for detail in shadows.

Jeff Han's demo of a lightbox was about the most convincing application demo I've seen of the feature but only really for sorting and rotating images and basic editing. Past that you have to keep grease and dirt away from images.

I once had a really cute sales rep come round my office to try and sell me some new search engine affiliation - could have sold me anything, even a search engine I wasn't that keen on. But then she stuck her finger on my screen...... sale over.

[SpamSandwich]

Originally Posted by melgross

As I've been saying.



I would like to see Multi-Touch on monitors. I don't see a problem. Don't people wash their hands? I can move my finger across my screen without getting grease over it, and I imagine that others can do so as well. Companies are quick to take advantage of these innovations. I can see one coming out with some small iten you put on your desk, or stick to the monitor, that people with sweaty or greasy fingers could quickly swipe across before they touched the screen.

When you use the phone, you are usually in transit, and may not have the cleanest fingers. But sitting in front of your machine at home, or in your place of business, you have no such excuse.

Multi-Touch sounds like a very useful feature. I can imagine using it while working with many programs. Moving a page or image around on the screen would be easier with a finger than it would be with a mouse or trackball. While it's also easy using a pen on my graphics tablet, most people don't use them for their work.

It's no stretch of the imagination to say the early adopters will be porn producers.

[SpamSandwich]

Originally Posted by TrevorD

I think a lot of people are missing the point of having a multitouch display on a desktop or laptop. People compare it to moving the hands from the mouse all the way up to the screen to do a simple click, or taking a stylus to do clicks all over the screen, neither of which is a step up from what we have today. But the difference here is the "multi" part of multitouch.

Easy examples have already been pointed out. Resizing or rotating images and webpages with two-finger pinch and rotate movements are much more accurate and natural than moving sliders or little boxes on an object's corner. And what about sound and video editing? There are tons of cases where being able to manipulate multiple controls on the screen at once would be a godsend, and are impossible to do currently without dedicated hardware.

For instance, you could move a bunch of sliders in a sound editing app all at once. Or how about that little keyboard in Garageband? Just blow it up to finger-tapping size and beginner users have a fully functional keyboard. It's not as good as dedicated hardware, but Garageband is made for beginners who may not have all the goodies yet.

Seriously, multitouch could be the beginning of a whole new way to interact with your computer. Forget all those single-click alternatives you've already tried because they're just awkward replacements for the mouse that's already on your desk. With multitouch, you now have 10 fingers able to do 10 things on your screen all at once, all with direct manipulation techniques that UI designers go bonkers for. If this is built into Leopard with easy-to-code APIs, and all new Macs provide support for it, we could see some amazing stuff that no one here has even imagined. Totally revamped iLife and pro apps would be just the beginning.

I think the "multitouch is useless on desktops" statement is in the same vein as "Apple shouldn't waste its time on an MP3 player".

I agree, any app that relies on a control surface or that could benefit from direct input would be fantastic on multi-touch monitors. Anything ranging from Painter, Photoshop, Illustrator, Final Cut, Soundtrack, GarageBand, the gamut of 3D modeling and rendering programs, even a lot of popular games, etc., etc., etc....

[Abster2core]

Originally Posted by aegisdesign

Yes, way before the iPhone announcement even. He's touching the screen.

Yes, but you don't have to!

"Instead of a typical cell phone's buttons, the iPhone has just a screen, and is operated by specific finger motions -- a capability similar to the products made by the firm that Elias and Westerman founded in conjunction with UD, called FingerWorks. Under Westerman and Elias' guidance, FingerWorks built a range of these multi-touch devices, including a no-touch keyboard, mouse-less mousepads and other gadgets that allowed users to initiate computer commands with finger gestures, or just by getting their fingers close to the keys."

And again: "FingerWorks (products need no on-screen contact to work. A FingerWorks keyboard senses the motion of fingers in the air, allowing users to "cut and paste" or zoom in and out with such simple gestures as "pinching" or "closing the lid of a jar."

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/p...0357/-1/NEWS01

[earthy]

All this talk about the smudge issue with touch screens reminds me of the Apple patent from a year or so back for screens where each pixel acts not only as a display pixel but as a "micro-camera" for receiving visual information. (I don't remember what it was called and all I was able to find on the web was references sto the proximity detector patent, though I'm sure that this would somehow integrate with the combined display/detector pixels patent...)

I can imagine this would be a clever way of detecting the location of a user's finger(s) at a respectable distance from the screen without the user having to actually touch the screen. With each pixel providing information to the processor on the location of fingers, it shouldn't be too difficult for an algorithm to calculate a stereoscopic representation of the fingers, and maybe even calculating relative distance of the fingers from the screen, which might permit a sort of 3D manipulation, where changing the distance of one finger relative to the screen, say, with the other staying at the same distance, could let you "push" or "pull" (parts of) objects away or toward you. Similarly, using the index and thumb on one hand as control fingers, rotating your hand in front of the screen could rotate an object away from you or toward you. Think of the possibilities that come from combining multi-touch with the pixel-level "micro-camera" patent...

[Kolchak]

Originally Posted by Abster2core

Forget the Windex?

"FingerWorks products need no on-screen contact to work. A FingerWorks keyboard senses the motion of fingers in the air, allowing users to "cut and paste" or zoom in and out with such simple gestures as "pinching" or "closing the lid of a jar."(1)

I hate to break this to you, but that article doesn't know what it's talking about. Fingerworks products always needed contact. It was essentially a multipoint trackpad, and you can't use a trackpad without touching it.

As for the analyst talking about touchscreen TVs, that's just dumb. People are so lazy that they won't give up their remote controls and they sure as heck won't get off the couch to walk to the TV to change the channel.