Apple Notebook Wide Touchpads Confirmed
Macsimumnews is reporting that the patent office today unveiled Apple’s wide touchpad license, originally granted August of 2004. I am not going to go into full details as they are not clear, but I suggest visiting their site and reading the full article (it’s long and a little redundant). What I can summarize and surmise for you is that the wide touchpads will be ‘smart’. What does this mean? Well, the pads are located at the point of palm resting. The pads will be able to determine – here’s the smart part – when the user is actually inputting a function on the touchpad versus just resting their hands or palms. It is unclear, but this will be a computed effort based on keyboard use, and perhaps an IR sensor to determine hand placement. Again the patent description is long and a bit confusing, but still reaffirms Apple’s plans to release a touchpad for their line of notebooks.
Grew up back East, got sick of the cold and headed West. Since I was small I have been pushing buttons - both electronic and human. With an insatiable need for tech I thought "why not start a blog focusing on technology, and use my dislikes and likes to post on gadgets."
I’m a little sad you all sat around and argued over the keyboard’s layout instead of truly talking about this idea. Doesn’t anyone else here realize the potential of this patent?
Apple has recently released many patents pertaining to new touch pads, ones with with multi-touch pressure-sensitive screens!
Such pressure sensitive screens combined with the ability to detect where the user’s palms are placed means Apple might have huge plans for their laptops.
It is in my strong belief that we will soon be seeing MacBooks and MacBook Pro’s with full surface touch pads that act both as a multi-touch interface as well as the keyboard. They might even be another screen too. Think of it as a super smart Nintendo DS that you can type on. Only Apple made it so it’s perfect.
Hello! Good Site! Thanks you! tiynbbiqclhbwb
Cialis Online
can you not left click on an apple laptop? its really annoying.
I’v just got a mac laptop and its annoying me that it has no delete key so how do you delete?
my ibook does not have a delete key…….therefore i cannot press fn + DELETE…….
so how the hell do i delete things as i would have on a normal laptop/pc……
many thanks……sooooo eagerly awaiting answers…..
there must be a keyboard shortcut that = DELETE
the comment about using the fingerworks technology is completely right. the inventor was my professor in college at UD and he sold the technology to apple and moved to california to work for them. i have no doubt that this is their technology finally being put to use and integrated into apple products.
I say remove the caps lock key, it takes up nice real estate and it always gets in the way. make fn + shift or some crap like that. damm relix of typewriters
that’s what I woulda said too, except i discovered that at least one of my friends uses the caps lock keep instead of holding shift for several characters in a row.
“What’s the point of such a wide touchpad?”
What’s the point? Jesus man, what’s taken so long is more like it? Ever notice how often you are using the touch pad at the edge? There may also be a multi point function ie. using 2 or more fingers to do things… Check out this video for a sweet demonstration of this technology.
i like that idea of having a sort of invisible touch pad. i could definatly see mac doing that. Sadly i dont have a mac and must wait until i can afford one. i long for that day
Damn right! Steve Jobs hates anything that distracts from a visually appealing design and I’ll bet that if this is imlemented there’d be no visible trackpad – making the Powerb- I mean, MacBook Pro or iBooks even more attractive.
I have a Dell Windoze machine for work and the delete button does nothing but sit there. The trackpack is placed for right handed folks which is great for that population. A large trackpad would be great.
My bet is that if they do this “wide” touchpad, then they’ll get rid of the rectangle. Imagine a MacBook/iBook with no visible trackpad. You just touch anywhere on the palm rest with a finger to move the mouse. It figures out when you’re resting your palm, and when you’re trying to manipulate the cursor.
I say remove the caps lock key, it takes up nice real estate and it always gets in the way. make fn + shift or some crap like that. damm relix of typewriters
Does a complete lack of imagination count as an opinion these days? The wide touchpad provides huge possibilities, particularly if it’s combined with an lcd display underneath. dials and sliders, psuedo-analogue input controls for any number of programs would be incredibly useful.
Tweaking dials on an 808, mixing colours on a pallete with your fingers in photoshop, sliding three seperate volume controls at once in a mixing program, etc etc
Huh? I think the point is that the whole area of the palm rest could be a touch-pad.
For example, you don’t have to go to a specific spot to move the pointer, you can just gesture over where ever your hand happens to be. It’s not that you’ll have to move your finger from one side of the laptop to another to have the pointer cross the screen, it just adds convience.
As to the last poster (“Good to see they’re dicking around with this while they still don’t have a real Delete key on the entire machine.”), I just don’t understand the comment… I’m posting from a G4 PowerBook, and clearly see a key labeled “Delete” in the upper right-hand corner of my keyboard. I use it to “delete” things I mistype. Maybe you should have used it on your post. ;)
they would leave the sides to be “hot corners” that could launch programs or scripts. it would also pave the way for LCD ‘buttons’ that could change based on the program running (like the Optima keyboard)
Good to see they’re dicking around with this while they still don’t have a real Delete key on the entire machine.
Innovating an entire new touchpad concept, versus adding another key to a keyboard that works just fine.
…and hitting fn+delete really isn’t that bad
It would be nice if it allows handwriting recognition with your finger, or even work as a pressure-sensitive tablet!
Hey, remind me to patent all not taken sizes and form factors of touchpads…
Thats just our insane patent system again.
On another note, who cares?
fn+delete = forward delete
What I really want are dedicated page up/page down keys.
Fn+Delete is the rightwards delete on keyboard without a delete key. Makes more sense then having to hold fn and key besides delete like on dells.
@”what’s the point”?
Well, duh, so you don’t have to move your hand to the center to use the trackpad. You can drop it anywhere. Just because it’s as wide as your screen doesn’t mean you have to move the entire distance of the trackpad to move your pointer the full distance of the screen. Sheesh, you guys are obviously not Mac users as you apparently lack the ability to Think Different. Enjoy your generic lives in your little boxes. ttfn
HAHAHAHA!! Great comment on the delete key. And I’m a happy Mac user…
not to mention, no windows key!
i very much wouldnt be suprised if they used certain hand movements as functions, like, say, you write ‘PS’ on the touch pad, and photoshop launches, or something akin to that.
Liek the next step for mouse gestures i guess.
I think this would be very cool.
when i used my girlfriends laptop, i find my arms and hands get cramped staying in the middle all the time (yes, i have an ‘ergonomic keyboard).
Dan x
Good to see they’re dicking around with this while they still don’t have a real Delete key on the entire machine.
What’s the point of such a wide touchpad?
Why would you want a huge touchpad, it would be annoying to have to move your hand around that much. You dont even move a mouse that far. And the “smart” part will probably end up like their “mighty” mouse that determines if you right or left click with one button and many people hate that.
The determination of whether the user is resting their hands/palms/etc is nothing new — Apple is using Fingerworks’ Multitouch technology which was able to do that several years ago.