Lol, well we are going to just have to agree to disagree I think.
You picture one interface implementation & think it's the bees knees and that the one I picture is not as good or not as helpful to as many people... and I feel the EXACT same way about the one I picture & what you describe.
I will say however, that I find it hilarious that in your opinion having a visceral experience where you could actually feel & interact with every point of your screen would only be appreciated by gamers, and thus you dismiss it, I assume because you feel that is too small of a group to matter.
Yet you continually mention the EXTREMELY small space of people that are using their iPads to create FX and CGI for making movies.
You honestly couldn't be arguing my point any better!!! I assert that a silly stylus would be used by precious few (as a percentage, not a gross amount of users) & thus should NOT be included with the iPad in the near future.
You seem to feel the same way about it, yet want it included with everybody's tablet whether they want it or not... presumably because you are either too cheap or stubborn to just go buy one if you want one so badly!!!!!! It's an ACCESSORY for Christ's sake.
And I don't think in tech, a lot of patents are getting put out over 20 years before the possibility of them seeing the light of day. You are being purposefully obtuse.
Btw, the patent of which I speak directly describes a contoured screen, NOT flat... I'm not talking about pretending to press a button while the screen vibrates beneath your finger.(current haptics).. I'm talking about LITERALLY having the screen form a raised button that you interact with physically in that app, which disappears when you launch a different app. Devs will be able to code in whatever physical controls would be most useful in each app & they will be physically manifest in the UI.
If you seriously cannot separate this in your mind from current haptics & recognize it as innovation, I honestly feel for you. Despite whatever you were imagining, this will NOT be "only" compelling to gamers or the blind. 100% of tablet users will benefit from this.
So... the ball is again in your court. Please describe to me an implementation of the stylus which would be useful & used by all... not just the digital artist professionals you so love to describe.
First off, gaming is one theory I had in mind why Apple would look into haptic feedback for the iOS platform due to complaints about the lack of precise control in hardcore games. I still find it odd why Apple would need 1,000 haptic points for such virtual buttons to be 'felt'.
Where is the point of that? You don't need to feel the buttons but to see them. You're touching the buttons on a touchscreen. And to a point, do your realize how much more expensive that would be for the iPad or iPhone to have this feature?
Not everyone wants that. There's nothing wrong with haptic feedback and I've experienced it many times in games over the years. But for other applications, I don't think it will work. Developers who make apps will have a huge headache in trying to figure out how to code the 1,000 points of feedback.
Besides, just because it's patented, it doesn't mean it'll be a reality. There was another patent by a smaller company that was going to create buttons that pop up from the keyboard and users can feel them. This wasn't Apple's idea but someone else's. I can see how it can work for keyboard use for touch-typing purposes but anything more than that would be extravagantly unnecessary.
When I looked up haptic feedback on phones, especially on Android, I've seen forums of users requesting how to turn them off. It must mean that they don't like the use of it on keyboards. If they don't like the idea of it, then it probably won't sit well with iOS users, or any other phone model.
As for CGI, that's not what I meant. I'm talking about using stylus on high-end graphic workstations in their production studios. You're twisting words here and you should KNOW better that professionals don't use iPads in their production studios for high-end FX creation and post-production work.
As for the 'precious few' is a misnomer. It's a huge industry ranging from graphic design, game production, publishing, CAD, industrial design and so on. Do you realize that that the car you drive was designed by an industrial designer who most likely used a CAD-based application with a 3-D mouse and a stylus? I know for a fact they do.
And the reason they use these stylus for their work is for precision and not to mention the reduction of RSI. A lot of professionals have said that using the stylus was far more natural than using the finger and reduces carpal tunnels/RSI. It's a fact.
So what if it's an accessory? Who cares? The stylus for the tablet and phone market has been getting better and have button switches on them to toggle as 'right click' functions or programmable to do other things, if desired. In fact, some of the stylus from Wacom have digital erasers on top, so if you want to erase something, you flip it and it'll erase something for you. It's far, far more natural than just using a finger by selecting an eraser that takes an extra step to do.
For people who use a stylus will benefit from precise note taking. I'll give you an example. A college student who needs to take notes in a lecture can do so with the stylus that has a fine nib on it, comfortably gliding across the screen. It's far more natural than using a finger.
Or a professional business executive in a meeting has to jot something down during a presentation can do the same thing, too. Or how about a contractor who's hired to renovate, say, a kitchen and goes over some ideas with the client on how to change it around using the stylus to create a conceptual?
EDIT: I've seen videos of professionals using stylus on a large digital whiteboard so that's not unusual to see especially when using a mobile device to stream on the screen live. Why? Because it's as natural as holding a pen/pencil.
And when I say about the use of VR ( virtual reality ) with haptic feedback, I wasn't kidding. This isn't for gaming alone. You should know that the use of VR with goggles is going to become a big thing soon besides gaming applications. Professionals can use a 3-D environment to build something for a presentation.
In fact, I know a guy in my state who has a small company that uses the Oculus VR to present his 'virtual walkthroughs' of his architectural projects for clients to experience, especially from a distance. And if they ever utilize haptic feedback, users can feel the walls and switches, or open windows with the gloves, interacting with the environment.
That stuff is in the works already and one Japanese team of developers is involved in that new endeavor which is seen here:
http://www.miraisens.com/news2en/news2.htm
Or another example of the UK team using haptic in holograms seen here:
http://news.discovery.com/tech/gear-and-gadgets/haptic-holograms-touchy-feely-141205.htm
Here's what I'm talking about the use of virtual objects and haptic use of touching:
http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/26/dexmo-virtual-reality-exoskeleton/
This is excellent use for education, training, and other any other purposes.
Again, I don't think 1,000 points of haptic feedback on the tablet or phone makes sense now. Not when VR is coming around the corner and is literally here with improved technology.
And if you think Apple is alone on this, think again. Microsoft is doing this too but for the 3-D environment:
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/news/features/3-dhaptic-060413.aspx
Haptic feedback on 3-D makes a LOT more sense than just a flat screen. However, if this is going to be used on a tablet or phone, I would say it would be limited in some capacity for accessibility purposes and not a killer feature.
I don't think it makes sense for Apple to compete with the VR market with 1,000 points of haptic feedback. If you think feeling a page turn as the only exciting thing, the novelty is going to wear off fast. And I would not be surprised if Amazon beats Apple to the punch with this on their future Kindle devices.
