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Apple Details Pressure-Sensitive Touchscreen in New Patent Application
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Apple better get sapphire glass in their devices sooner because I can imagine many cracked screens with pressure-sensitivity as a feature. Yup, just imagining the many people who will end up pressing harder than needed when their device doesn't immediately register a gesture.
it may not be that useful for the current iPad form, but it may be useful for smaller unreleased products ... like a phablet with an edge to edge screen. Or even a large tablet with small bezels.
And/or just updating the capacitive panel firmware and touch event routines so that it can differentiate between different inputs. They could do this today with no new hardware.
Apple broke a sweat getting the original iphone touch and gesture events working well, but has done very little since. Meanwhile, there is a big stylus industry around their failing to address this opportunity.
The only reasons styluses suck so much is because they need to appear as fingertip-sized. I find them extremely sloppy. People say they are crayons (the worst art implement, for some reason we give them to kids) but they are actually worse. Take a crayon, make the tip mushy and make it impossibly big.
I've talked to these guys, that goes to show you how much people are willing to get a proper implement working.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/227221698/truglide-apex-fine-point-electronic-stylus-for-ipa
Always loves even the crappiest wacom product because you can hover the pen. I like to make a few practice runs before I commit to a line. That's key.
Pressure sensitivity is just icing. People say that's the holy graille, but I think accuracy and feedback is.
iPad drawing apps show how much you can do without Pressure... stroke thinning based on speed is a nice innovation. Maybe anything that comes of this patent will change people's expectations of that though.
hahaha "Microsoft doesn't need to do this, because its second nature to use Windows.." right, like hiding how you get to the charms and the start button on windows 8 tablets as a slide out from the bezel wasn't confusing as hell and had no visual cues. You have good points that adding complex gestures would be confusing if they were the only way to do something but don't bring up Microsoft as the gold standard of usability.
I doubt Apple would use technology like this for more complex interactions in the os. They could support current interactions in a complex way but not be noticeable to the user. Palm rejection is complicated, but if done right, the user doesn't even know it's working.
yes, they'd release it so it's completely mushy and terrible to use. you know, because thats how apple rolls.
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please familiarize yourself w/ the term "oxymoron".
bahahahaahahaha......thanks, mate, i needed that.
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incorrect. the link to the upcoming power adapter was in fact the lightning port.
patents are filed before the device is put into production. writing a patent application detailed enough to cover you, but abstract enough to not telegraph everything is the art form they pay patent attorneys for.
How is that an oxymoron? Being able to make products that are both powerful and easy to use is a skill only a few in the industry truly possess, but the two concepts aren't mutually exclusive. You don't have to choose between one or the other.
Wii Fit had a pressure-sensitive touchscreen technology? amazing, i missed this completely.
wait...you mean the thing you stand on, dont you? nope, not prior art for this. nor is, you know, a scale.
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that isn't what he said. he said:
"make products easy to use, but also think about their customers."
this is redundant (a better word than oxymoron) and non-sensical, because:
making products easy to use == thinking about customers
...the two are not separate ideas, but are in fact one and the same. making products easy to use IS thinking about customers. and this is what historically apple excels at.
I'm skeptical... Palm rejection doesn't work, and when there is more than one touching/pressing element (finger, stylus, palm) on the screen, how are the sensors gonna know which one is which?
I think it needs more than that. I'm not saying they might have something to cover this scenario, but this in itself isn't any relief just yet.
If you want pressure sensitive drawing and palm rejection that actually DOES work, get an active stylus. Period.
Glassed Silver:mac
Isn't this a step backward?? Resistive screens were the PDAs of 90s while Capacitive screens were invented with iPhone
Nope, just positing the idea as a possibility. Also, it's possible that you find the home button extremely useful because that's what you're used to. What is the difference between a dedicated home button vs. a screen that takes pressure-sensitive input to do the same function?
More home button haters should take a page from your book and suggest an actual alternative. Apple, despite iOS 7, is not going to just going to do what Google and Samsung does.
Still, I think your alternative would be hard for some people in my family that want a button. At the very least it would be unfamiliar at first. So there is a difference, and when you have so few product differences, a small difference is a big one.
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I doubt they'd even require anything more than a firm press, and that anything above a certain pressure will provide bad data.
If this even sees the light of day in testing, it will be to differentiate accidental vs light/probatory vs intended action committment. The equivalent of a mouse cursor hover.