iPatent
EETimes announced yesterday an Apple patent application describing a touch screen control system. Fans of Apple products (myself included) are excited by the prospect of a whole new breed of devices that could incorporate a touch screen interface. The iPhone is the only product Apple has announced and shown to have this type of interface. Of course many will remember that Apple’s Newton – the world’s first PDA – employed a touch screen.
Although touch screen information displays abound, Apple seems to have recognized the utility of a truly tactile interaction using human fingers as opposed to a stylus. Those like myself too lazy to extract a stylus from its holder find our cell phone or PDA screens forever sullied by dirty, greasy fingerprints. The iPhone will face this dilemma, but next generation iPods will keep sticky fingers off the information display. The touch screen will handle only the inputs while the control menus, clickwheels or other navigable GUI’s will appear on the information display. I like to use my fingers but also like a clean screen, so I think this is a great idea.
The application, the Antone Gonsalves article and tens or hundreds of speculators do a great deal to spark interest in future possibilities from Cupertino. This all sounds like typical Apple buzz from spin master, Steve Jobs. And that’s good because the application, if granted, could face challenges. The first hurdle for any invention is the “obviousness” test. Apple’s application claims:
A method for operating a hand-held electronic device, comprising: displaying first information on a display element on a first surface of a hand-held electronic device; displaying control elements and a cursor on the display element when the electronic device is in a specified state; adjusting a display position of the cursor in response to a contact on a force-sensitive touch-surface on a second surface of the electronic device, the second surface being a different surface than the first surface; and activating a function associated with a first displayed control element when the cursor is positioned coincident with the first displayed control element and an activation force is applied to the force-sensitive touch-surface at a position corresponding to the cursor.
The long and short of this appears to be the marriage of an information display (presently well known) and a touch screen for human interaction (also well known). Putting two previously known inventions together could open this patent up to attacks based on obviousness. Whether the USPTO grants a patent for this or not, Apple will have accomplished a lot by generating an avalanche of speculation on touch screen iPods, MacBooks, iPhones and other goodies to look forward to well in advance of showing us any prototypes.
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