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Sony has already released a gaming console with this feature, the PS Vita. http://www.modojo.com/features/playstation_vitas_rear_touch_...
The only game as far as I'm aware that properly makes use of it is Tearaway, but even then it only appears in a few places and was kind of awkward to control properly.
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.
Sony has already released a gaming console with this feature, the PS Vita. http://www.modojo.com/features/playstation_vitas_rear_touch_...
It's of limited use though. The only game as far as I'm aware that properly makes use of it is Tearaway, but even then it only appears in a few places and was kind of awkward to control properly.
It is in fact awkward to use, IMO, and not just because of the software or Sony's implementation.
There are at least two big problems with it:
One is that it is really difficult to do Wacom-pen style hovering of a "cursor" on a capacitive surface with finger input in a way that works well universally for everyone without a lengthy and awkward calibration. And because of the non-direct method of interaction using your fingers on the back gives you, you really need some sort of non-action hovering indicator for this setup to work well.
The other is this: Put your hands in the positions shown in the original article. Now try moving your your index and middle fingers around as if touching the back surface of a device and try not to move your thumbs (and wrists) all over the place involuntarily. For most people this is difficult. When you are tightly gripping a device this becomes less of a problem but still contributes to the whole thing feeling very uncomfortable and unstable.
I'm nearly positive that various companies like Apple must have tested something like this out (either before/after the PS Vita) for a phone and just found it to be a poor solution when implemented in a real-world prototype.
Even people who grasp code pretty well loading up some code(stable library) needed by tutorial might get tripped up by a wrong advice such as library that was fixed for some security vulnerability that broke a number of thing that current examples need to work and failing code just misbehaves in a number of ways, one remarkable - blaming general implementation of examples that they are trying breaking security standards and not give any alternative to do otherwise. that is unless you find a reference somewhere on some obscure blog that says that you have to load specific version pre-alpha/HEAD^3 because HEAD is broken so many subtle ways that it will cause you even more pain. This happened not once and not only to me I bet. I know I could've patched my code but with the deadline and fact that I don't know much about cryptography that would not be a sane option.
... "The samples will be missing lots of implicit information such as how to install the necessary libraries and how to deal with missing dependencies and version conflicts." .. Even people who grasp code pretty well loading up some code(stable library) needed by tutorial might get tripped up by a wrong advice such as library that was fixed for some security vulnerability that broke a number of thing that current exa…
I've never realized this was even a problem, much less the biggest one.
> "The biggest problems is that your fingers are not transparent. They obscure the screen." I've never realized this was even a problem, much less the biggest one.
Maybe in games this is more of an issue, especially where you need to leave your fingers in the same position and the design of the game does a poor job of taking this into account. But those are mostly edge cases.
The Notion Ink tablet originally had this back in 2010. It was disabled and eventually removed entirely. There were rumors that it was squashed by an apple patient, but I cannot find anything more substantial. The whole NI tablet debacle made me quite jaded towards miracle tech. I'm lucky it predated kickstarter, because I would have most likely backed it up to 50% over retail. It's probably why I don't own a 1st gen…
you are right about the apple patent. Apple bought fingerWorks in 2005 and killed ALL the loved product lines (of note, one keyboard that was in its entire area, a touchpad). apple sit on top of the company's IP assets and used it for nothing but suing people. ...and people still wonder why i avoid any apple product..
anyway, eventually the touch screen tech made it to the iphones. or so they say. but if you compare the fingerworks tech on the few shipped keyboards and the iphone resistive touchscreen, they have little in common. apple was just trolling everyone with the patents and killing innovation all around.
but since fingerworks was dead since 2005 thanks to apple, several other companies with employees that probably never even heard of finger works developed this idea... nokia as you mention. sony with psp. motorola with the backflip (which being one of the first AT&T exclusive android phones suffered of having the worst crap of custom android ROM that ever saw the light of day). And more recently the Oppo N1 already have the very same implementation idea mentioned in the article, and is in production. but you don't see anyone rushing to the stores.