Apple Plans for Superwide trackpad for next gen PowerBooks?

Apple has decided to lodge a Patent Application covering the use of a wide trackpad in a Power/MacBook. Nothing too earth shattering and it doesn’t appear to be a multipoint touchpad like described in previous patent applications. Credit to Macsimum News for finding the patent.

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. 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? but perhaps we’ll need them for our new Apple alien hands.

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).

In one embodiment, the touchpad possesses the ability to reject accidental contact when a user does not intend to activate the touchpad (e.g., the touchpad is able to distinguish when a user is contacting the touchpad for intended use or is merely resting his or her palms on a particular portion of the touchpad during a typing activity). In one particular embodiment, a sensor is disposed near the touchpad and keyboard of the portable computer to sense hand location of a user, and subsequently determine whether the touchpad contact is intentional or accidental. The touchpad responds properly by either recognizing the action on the touchpad or rejecting the action. As a result, the user is able to work efficiently, allowing for typing and cursor control operations to occur seamlessly.

In one embodiment, the wide touchpad may be a cursor control device having the capabilities of conventional computer mouse devices, such as the ability to point, drag, tap, and double tap objects on a graphical user interface, as well as more general purposes such as scrolling, panning, zooming, and rotating images on display screen. The wide touchpad extends into the areas on the surface of the base assembly that are normally reserved for palm rest areas (e.g., flat areas on the surface of the base assembly that support a user’s palms and/or wrists while typing).

In one embodiment, the wide touchpad filters each contact or contact patch sensed to either accept the contact as an intentional input command (e.g., cursor control command), or reject the contact as unintentional (e.g., when operating as a palm rest). The wide touchpad can filter multiple contact patches in order to accept a particular contact patch in one area of the touchpad while rejecting a second contact patch elsewhere on the wide touchpad. In one embodiment, a sensor is disposed between the keyboard and touchpad. The sensor defines a planar sensing region extending upwards from the top surface of the base assembly. The sensor detects a user’s hand that may be resting on the base assembly with a palm portion making contact with a portion of the wide touchpad and the fingers extending toward keyboard. When this detection is made, any contact made with a corresponding portion of the touchpad is rejected, having been interpreted as unintentional contact by the user. Alternatively, detection of fingers extending toward the keyboard may be evaluated as one of many factors used to decide whether and what significance to accord to contact with the touchpad. For example, other factors may include the profile of the contact with the touchpad, the level of keyboard activity at the time of contact, etc. In this way, the touchpad may effectively serve as a palm rest (e.g., the user may intentionally rest one or more palm or other part of a hand or arm on a portion of the touchpad, which is recognized as an unintentional input) in addition to a functional touchpad when an input is interpreted as being an intentional contact by the user.

I think this just another patent Apple is releasing to try and get some licensing cash from- I can’t see them putting this in an iBook or MacBook unless it has some serious advantages over the present system. Apple’s user testing will probably decide whether this sees the light of day.