Video iPod
A lot of the time, future Apple tech is revealed by patent applications, so the rumor community keeps a close eye on the patent office. One application that Apple made recently had this image:
One of the things I had wondered about was how a full-screen, touch-screen video iPod would be able to maintain a clear enough screen to allow for enjoyable viewing, if one’s hands were constantly touching it. This is the answer.
Here’s the way it would work: instead of the user touching the screen, one would touch the frame (“bezel”) surrounding the screen. The circles around the edge of the device are not physical buttons, but rather touch-sensitive areas. For example, the three circles at the top of each of the screens shown above would correspond to the controls shown just below them on the screen itself. When you see a control on the iPod video screen, just touch the part of the screen frame closest to the button, and that will do the job. The buttons appear and change dynamically to suit the image on the screen and even the orientation of the device (if it’s in portrait or landscape mode).
In this way, the user has full control without physical buttons, but the full-face screen remains smudge-free. A pretty clever design, I think–though it belies prior patents that have the virtual clickwheel displayed on the screen. The mockup below shows the exact hardware design shown in these patents, but has the virtual clickwheel.
More drawings from the patent application can be found here.
A big display could chew up a lot of battery power, and cost.
I’m pretty sure Apple would do what they could to optimize power consumption but this is the kind of iPod a lot of users have been waiting for. Even if it’s more expensive, having a full screen would be worth it to most iPod users who want to watch video. I’m hoping Apple gets this together in time for Christmas so my husband can get one.
Luis,
I have a new found respect for you. I was silly enough to get in a Vista discussion on Engadget, and when I guy was discussing all the malarkey about how Macs are just as bad as PCs, I felt the need to point out the fallacies. Well, after a couple of exchanges I was informed my XP machine crashes because of my fondness for looking up kiddie pr0n (trying not to set off your filters).
So, a tip of my hat to you for your un-wavering fight against Vista…there are some real classy PC fanboys out there.
As for power optimization, right now, I think you can get around all day on one charge; even half a day would be enough to watch several movies without recharging. True, it wouldn’t last all day, but how many people listen to their iPods all day long? How many would watch video all day long?
I would really want to buy one of these… but I am also seeing the iPhone coming, and I might not be able to justify getting both. Depending on how each is executed, I’ll have to decide which one I want to buy.
Sean: welcome to the world of unmoderated forums. Best to go on the moderated ones. I’ve tried those a lot in the past, and even there where people must be more civil, there’s still difficulty in getting people to be reasonable. See this post for more details on that.
Oh I’ve been through it before, I just couldn’t believe it fell apart so quickly and over something as silly as an OS discussion! No wonder Mac users laugh at the PC users if those guys are indicative of what’s out there! (I love the guy who claimed his XP machine had never crashed once in 4 years…yeah…right)
And I had seen your post before, amazingly well put.
Yeah, the Mac vs. PC debate has gotten pretty heated over the years. For too many, it is now simply at the degraded point of name-callling. A lot of it is simple possession–you invested thousands of dollars into a system, you want to believe it’s the better one, no matter what anyone says. In this way, it’s kind of like insulting a guy’s car, a woman’s wardrobe, or a religious person’s god. People take it kind of hard. The ones who get all bent out of shape and resort to meaningless insults and epithets are usually the ones protecting an investment out of reflex more than anything else. Either that or they’re teenage kids who don’t know any better. Either way, it doesn’t profit to pay them any heed, as you have of course found out.