Apple patent suggests the return of the scrollwheel (with light feedback)
Apple has filed a patent which indicates a new generation of iPods equipped with scrollwheels providing feedback using illumination of the wheel itself. The illustration accompanying the patent shows a scrollwheel of the familiar design which glows brighter the greater the scrolling input from the user’s finger.
The patent was published yesterday (24th January 2008) by the US Patent & Trademark Office and is entitled “Illuminated touch pad”. The patent lists the folowing ways in which light would be used in the proposed scrollwheel:
- Changing intensity with the speed of scrolling
- Different areas of the wheel lighting up depending on where the user touches it
Apple makes a great number of patent applications which never see the ‘light’ of day and this may be one of them as the proposal seems to offer very little return on the investment required in re-tooling and design. But we just might see this idea appearing on multi-touch pads on iPods and MacBooks in the future.
This story on other sites
- iPod Scroll Wheel Illumination Patent Shows Two Finger Control [Apple]
- Multi-Touch Scroll Wheel?
- Apple Patent - Illuminated Touch Pad for Visual Feedback
- iPod Scroll Wheel Illumination Patent Shows Two Finger Control [Apple]
February 11th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Neat, but ultimately cosmetic. Let’s work on some 80GB iPod Touches, Apple!
February 16th, 2008 at 1:03 am
Interesting post. I was reading about Apple’s patent for the personal computer http://www.techbanyan.com/archives/180 earlier and it seems apple is still going strong the during the time it was started. Apple is a tech revolution.