Apple files patent for iMac that can flip between mouse input and angled touchscreen
Apple’s gotten pretty damn good at multi-touch UI, and the iMac is already almost the perfect design, so perhaps it should be no surprise that Apple’s recently filed an international patent for an iMac-like computer that uses mouse input when the screen is vertical and switches to iPad-like multi-touch input when you flip the screen more or less horizontal.
This, if it ever comes to fruition, which I imagine it will at some point, would be fucking perfect– a full-sized, full-power computer that I could angle to turn it into a multi-touch Wacom kinda thing. It may not be the next generation of iMac, but something similar to this could easily come out in several years.
Basically, the patent covers the method of transitioning from a traditional “high resolution” UI (best operated by a mouse) to a “low resolution” UI suitable to finger operation (like iOS). A myriad of sensors can be employed to detect the user moving the screen into touch mode, and as the user does this the difficult high res bits like cursors and scrollbars and drop down menus “slide off the screen,” leaving only a touch UI at the end of the transition. It’s all very broad and vague, naturally, being a patent, but it’s an interesting idea, and makes more sense than ruining the good thing desktop UIs have going with a tacked-on touch UI in the style of Microsoft’s Windows.
