Apple Design – The Real Wow Factor
The Cupertino engineering brain trust is making waves once again. The below is a patent recently filed by Apple.
The patent details one of the possible solutions for integrating tactile interface into ultraportables (e.g. the iPod Nano), which traditionally have LCD screens that are too small to be useful as touch screens. It also addresses the issue of smudging those gorgeous Apple displays, which is a big concern for many potential iPhone buyers.
Aside from all of the technical and design accolades one could heap on Apple for their recent success, they really seem to understand exactly what type of leaps in technology will generate buzz. Of course, half of generating buzz is in how it is presented, and Apple is extremely adept at dressing up evolutionary as revolutionary when positioning their design developments.
Though this particular concept could go either way depending on how much it differs from the iPhone’s multi-touch interface, they are obviously not content to rest on the laurels of the mega-hype surrounding the June release of their little-device-that-could, and how it is going to revolutionize the cell-phone industry…
The proposed design boils down to Apple placing the control surface on the back of the device but the user still looks face-on at the LCD screen and a cursor tracks the position of the user’s finger as it moves. Move your finger around a phantom scroll-wheel on the back, watch the device scroll through your songs on the front.
It appears the control mechanisms either appear light up on the back as the user-selected functionality dictates (a la the new Motorola KRZR music playing phones), or be etched on the back permanently. It doesn’t sound 100% intuitive – sort of like trimming your neckline in the mirror, but it is – once again – outside the box thinking.
What’s also interesting is the indication of phone functionality in the diagram. iPhone Nano? Who knows. Investment Banker analysts UBS were recently quoted as saying
“For the rest of calendar 2007, we expect new video iPods including a widescreen video iPod with multi-touch technology (likely flash), higher capacity nanos and shuffles and new Macs into the holidays.”
I’m not sure what the ratio is of patents actually turning into actual product releases, but it at least gives insight into how Apple is trying to deliver things to the consumer that they don’t even know they want yet.
Unfortunately for pretty much everyone, Apple does a phenomenal job of keeping a tight lid on upcoming product releases and their development cycles in general. Rampant speculation on the part of every Apple rumor-monger with a blog (guilty) fuels the Apple mystique and overall consumer interest in their product lines. It also keeps people buying up to the minute prior to a new product announcement because there is zero previous indication that said product is about to take a back seat to something bigger (smaller?) and better.
It’s just refreshing to see a company taking such a vested interest in the end-user experience – making it (or seemingly so in the public eye) their #1 priority over cost-cutting to increase profit-margins, banking on the public’s base-need as opposed to their desire to go-beyond.
The Technologist 