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Dual-touch smartphone design concept

blog.assaflavie.com

31–40 of 61 posts

Re: Dual-touch smartphone design concept

#33
post #28

as others have mentioned it's not a new idea. i think the reason you don't see it in Apple products at least is because it is a step backwards in terms of metaphor. the iPhone's core metaphor is direct manipulation. this requires that your brain visually connects the motion of your finger with the objects on screen. if you manipulated things via the back touchpad, this illusion would be broken and it would feel more…

That sounds like the reason Apple refused to use a hardware button to trigger the camera shutter, but thankfully they caved on that one and I can take a photo without having to guess where I'm tapping the screen.

I'd rather see companies trying out ideas that might work instead of just sticking to their metaphorical guns.

Re: Dual-touch smartphone design concept

#36
post #24

Now that @assaflavie has written about it, does it constitute as 'prior art' and nobody can patent it?

Exactly that. You cannot invent (patent) something that has already been invented. Now you could go ahead and invent (patent) something that builds on his ideas, as long as those ideas are a novel addition (not an obvious next step).

Re: Dual-touch smartphone design concept

#37
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My hand is in contact with the touchpad on my laptop almost constantly, but this rarely causes any unintended interaction.

I had to turn off touch to click on my MacBook Air because I often brush the pad with the heel of my hand while typing, causing the OS to refocus on wherever the cursor happened to be.

Isn't it off by default?

I like the physical click way better, in any case.

Re: Dual-touch smartphone design concept

#38
That's a good idea and all, but you know what would be better than two touch panels? A button to turn them off!

With screens bigger than your hands and accidental touch detection being as bad as ever, a simple button to turn off the digitizer would make a lot of people happy...

Re: Dual-touch smartphone design concept

#39
This seems particularly useful for very small touch screens, assuming you can comfortably hold the device without miss-clicks.

Perhaps a smart watch could even have its screen on one side of your wrist, and a "touchpad" on the other.

Re: Dual-touch smartphone design concept

#40
How about instead of a 1:1 touchpad on the back, which could have problems, Put a trackpad on the back of the phone, but have it just be a small square. So it wouldn't be a "full-fledged" touchscreen, but a small touch sensistive section. You could also have a discrete capacitance detecting sliver on the side of the phone so that it's only active if you're physically holding the phone. Clicks would happen using a button.
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