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hismikeness

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 2, 2009
177
0
This new generation of ATV, there has been some talk about the inclusion of iOS on it. I actually dreamed of how this might be applied last night...

Imagine the new device, hooked up to your fancy big screen across the living room. Your sitting on your couch with your ipod touch or iphone in your hands, landscape style, using both thumbs as a multitouch input to move a "cursor" around. It's not a mouse arrow, but more like a glowing orb from the visualizer, which matches on the big screen where you touch on the little screen, via bluetooth.

So 3rd party developers made apps for the ATV, which live on your home screen and appear much the same as they do in iOS mobile devices; rounded cornered logo boxes. You flick through pages of apps, like we're all used to. You touch the ipod touch and the orb appears. Keep your thumb on the screen, move it exactly where you want to go (because unless you get really good, you will be in the vicinity but not right on your icon on the first try) and tap anywhere else with the other thumb and the app launches. Double tap for a "right click".

Or a while back, wasn't there a rumor about some touch tablet mouse thing... maybe that could be used too. Perhaps there will be a shift towards this kind of OS on non-mobile machines. It's always been the interface therein that had me worried about iOS's non-mobile success. I WILL NOT touch my tv screen.

If you need a controller, the ipod touch changes to what you need. If you need a keyboard, there's the wireless keyboard. Racing games (or whatever) are pulled off on the big screen just as they are on the small handheld screen, except now the ipod is only the "steering wheel".

Have I explained this well enough? Is it something anyone else can visualize?

But, knowing it was a dream and all, I will say it was really fun and easy to use.
 
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