So, the rumor mill is churning out rumors on the possibility of a new sub-notebook from Apple in the near future. One of the interesting details of the rumor as reported by 9to5mac.com is that:

There is something strange about the touchpad

This isn’t very useful as far as rumors go. However, Apple has made some interesting patent applications in the past for strange touchpads- from dockable iPods replacing the trackpad to a superwide trackpad with the iSight camera tracking your hands to figure out whether it’s being used. Not to mention the weirdness of adding your own buttons to a blank touchpad– surely they can’t actually make that? Here are a few figures from these applications… they won’t all be in a new Apple subnotebook– will any?

Trackpad Patent 1: Add buttons to your track pad

Apple has filed a new patent application for the adding of physical controls (like buttons or sliders etc) to the touch sensitive surfaces of electronic devices. Apple seems to propose that you take a ‘blank’ touchpad and add a wheel for a standard touchpad, add a keypad to make it a phone - add a joystick to make it a game machine. The overlays are identified by the computer/device and it reacts accordingly. Imagine adding a nice volume control to your touchpad.

Trackpad Patent 2: Superwide touchpad

Not sure exactly what the use of an extra-wide trackpad is. Perhaps different sections of the touch sensitive area could be assigned different buttons or even be written on?Never the less, this could be a useful addition to Power/MacBook input devices. Interestingly, they suggest they might use the built-in video camera to see if the contact is accidental or not.

The pat app features the use of the inbuilt video camera to determine whether input on the wide trackpad is deliberate or just a bi-product of typing. (they use video analysis to determine the position of the hands and what the user is trying to do). Other methods for determining whether input is deliberate include having sensors to detect the position of the hands (infrared (IR) sensors that look “upward” or optical emitter-detector pairs).

Trackpad Patent 3: iPod as touchpad in MacBook

This patent is the inclusion of an iPod dock as part of the SubMacBook- in one version of this the iPod replaces the trackpad of the SubMacBook. This is an interesting idea (especially considering the rumours suggestingdocks were initially intended to be included in the Mac Mini). Making an iPod a central part of the Mac would perhaps extend the so called ‘iPod Halo’ effect. it could also enable the home-on-the-iPod (a feature that was almost part of Panther and is rumoured to be perhaps going to make an appearance one day).

Conclusions

What ya reckon? Any of these possible?