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Dual-touch smartphone design concept

blog.assaflavie.com

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Re: Dual-touch smartphone design concept

#51

Post by ATLobotomy »

dnautics wrote: post #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 but…

Why does it have to be on the back? Some old Android phones had a trackball (or an optical sensor like on a mouse) to be used as a sort of cursor. The Palm Pre had a small touch sensitive area below the screen that could be used for OS specific gestures (much better integrated than what Android used the trackball for IMHO).

All of these ideas are pointing to the issues in the use of a touchscreen as input (imprecise, blocks screen during use, etc), yet for some reason they keep getting used (and even taking over regular buttons).

I hope that this decision is being tested by the companies HCI departments, but I worry that marketing is deciding that changing the input would be too much of a risk (or cause fragmentation).

Re: Dual-touch smartphone design concept

#53

Post by bemmu »

r0h1n wrote: post #48

> "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.

Could be a problem for games where your finger might obscure the thing you want to interact with.

Re: Dual-touch smartphone design concept

#54

Post by bobbles »

tgb wrote: post #6

I suspect that Apple, Samsung, etc. have thought of this, so why aren't they doing it? (After all, the PS Vita has had a back touchpad for a while.) The first thing that comes to mind is that people hold their phones with the back. Accidental clicks would be very difficult to avoid. In contrast, the PS Vita is larger, held with both hands and has non-touchpad areas of the back where you can grip it, as I understand.…

People also use their phone with a case

Re: Dual-touch smartphone design concept

#57

Post by acd »

I think the future of smartphones are foldable either in the middle like a foldable sheet of paper or expandable flexible oled displays formed like Chinese hand fans or origami.

Further more the cell phone of the future will be able to borrow any big screen in its vicinity. Something like NFC from the large display/computer monitor and built in AppleTV, Google Chrome MiraCast functionality. You will also be able to borrow local keyboards for better input, but without the bluetooth hassles of setting it up. So the cafe, workplaces of the future will have wireless chargers and screens that you can borrow for your mobile device.

So you will carry your device around but borrow larger displays and keyboards. The device will be powerful enough todo your everyday computing. No need to drag a big laptop around if you do not want to.

These devices will also be user serviceable like Google/Motorola Project Ara. It is simply not good for the environment to throw away a whole phone just because the display, battery is bad or because you want to upgrade the radio components. So in the future devices will be made to be recyclable, this trend will be driven by the scarcity of rare earth metals. It will simply not be good enough to buy and throw devices and not think about the recycling of rare metals and the environment.

The future is bright.

Re: Dual-touch smartphone design concept

#58

Post by andrewflnr »

jader201 wrote: post #49
r0h1n wrote: post #48

> "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.

Yeah, my biggest issue with touch screens by far is the lack of precision. This point seems a bit silly as your fingers typically move fast enough to allow your memory to recall the image. 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 problem with precision is one of visibility. In my experience, the problem us that I can't see the exact spot where the device thinks my finger is because my finger is on top of it. This is at least the case with text selection.

Re: Dual-touch smartphone design concept

#59

Post by lnanek2 »

josho wrote: post #36
enscr wrote: 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).

Isn't it first to file nowadays, not first to invent? Not that there aren't shipping phones and other devices with this already anyway.
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