Details on Apple's "display actuator"
updated 01:15 pm EDT, Thu August 17, 2006
Apple's "display actuator"
A new filing with the US Patent & Trademark Office offers more details on the combination input/output invention first revealed by a filing with the European Patent Office. The company is hoping to improve the user interface on electronic devices to shrink their size and maximize visual real-estate available on the surface using what it calls a "display actuator." The invention straddles two separate patent filings relating to the input generation and output visualization from the same invention. Earlier this week, Apple filed for a trademark on "multi-pass," which it uses to sell bundled media content from the iTunes Music Store at a discount and also received patents for the Mac mini, fluid cooling, and improving image decompression.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Apr 2004
This is different
This patent is obvously meant to cover every input for every display option and can be useful in a wide range of devices. The most important will be the cellphone where display resolutions are not as important as multifunctioning actuators or buttons.
It seems that this may allow a clickwheel to also display numeric buttons on the same "screen." Depending upon how well it keeps dust and grit out of the mechanisms, this could be intriguing.
As for other devices, it seems that the best use of multiple mapped input buttons is for something like a pda, which is not a market Apple has been interested in entering. I would love to see an iApp/pda device with an OSX lite, but I don't expect it to happen.
For a portable video device, these look intriguing, but I don't see them as necessary innovations since you only need a few buttons to run video.
I would love to see new devices with these inputs, but I don't think I am smart enough to run actuators that sense both finger proximity and button movement and display displacement!! Then again maybe the device will only be used by 12 year olds who are bored with PS2 controllers.