Tactile Feedback for the iPhone
Everyone is worried about the iPhone’s lack of buttons and how that will make it hard to dial when you aren’t looking at the phone. Typing text messages may be difficult, too. The Nokia Internet Tablets (770 and N800) have a touch keyboard with large buttons that pops up when you are entering text with your fingers instead of your stylus. I have less than perfect accuracy with that interface. What we need is tactile feedback for our touch screens.
It turns out that at least one company makes such a thing. Immersion has a white paper on the topic which includes this description:
Immersion proprietary TouchSense technology causes the touchscreen to vibrate, creating the feeling of pressing mechanical switches, emulating crisp qualities and particular force and release characteristics. TouchSense tactile feedback is controlled by the application software, so touching different onscreen objects produces the optimal, desired, context-sensitive feel.
On the iPhone, what if the buttons will FEEL different than the rest of the screen. What if, additionally, the screen is pressure sensitive and it will require you to put down more pressure so you can touch the buttons without pressing them. Maybe Multi-Touch isn’t the only hardware innovation going on here.
This could be really good.
And if Apple didn’t go in this direction? There is another possibility. What if the screen itself will have ridges or raised surfaces or textures where the buttons are? Note that they don’t want to use a stylus. A stylus could rub against those imperfections and hurt the screen, while your fingers won’t cause any damage. Maybe these ridges and raised surfaces can appear and disappear at runtime in predetermined (like memory wire) or (better) dynamic locations. I guess we’ll ‘see’ soon enough.
ThoughFix on the N800 – First Look and Video
ThoughtFix has 2 new n800 posts. The video is a great tour of the device itself, with some commentary on the differences between the n800 and the 770. The video also shows how the interface of the n800 changes automatically when you use your finger instead of the stylus. His First Look post is a great introduction to some of the device’s new features and is a must read if you plan to buy one.
Jonathan Greene on ReaderMini
John Tokash … has replicated a very close desktop experience for the mobile browser in ReaderMini. It works very well over both EDGE data and WiFi and has really enabled a very slick experience without limits. John’s been putting in some late nights, taking all my feedback (gotta love that) and released quite a few updates in very short order.
Jon, thanks for the kind words. The excellent feedback you provide on a regular basis has helped shaped ReaderMini’s functionality and UI.
Stay tuned for more updates. The next major milestone is a skin that looks nice!!
Nokia is Listening to its Customers
With the introduction of the N800 Internet Tablet, Nokia originally planned to not release the N800’s software improvements to the original tablet, the Nokia 770. After seeing the incredible amount of negative customer feedback that decision caused, Nokia is rethinking their decision and, in an open way, is researching how they can release Internet Tablet OS 2007 for the 770.
At first, I wondered why people were complaining. When a new Palm device comes out, I never expect the OS changes to be made available for older devices. However, per the most popular argument, these customers feel that they purchased a COMPUTER, not a PDA. COMPUTERs generally get new versions of their OS even after an updated model is released.
So, like Nokia, I’m slowly starting to understand where these customers are coming from. Also, like Nokia, my mind is racing with the negatives of a move like this. Backwards compatibility often has a price. Just ask Microsoft. Effort that is spent on maintenance can’t be spent on new features. For a device as early in its development as the Nokia Internet Tablet, I think I’d prefer innovation over backwards compatibility. Note – the two aren’t ALWAYS mutually exclusive and in those cases you should always lean towards back compat.
I own both devices and I would certainly upgrade the 770 to the newer OS if given the choice, but I can understand both sides of the argument and I don’t plan to complain in either case.
Nokia Internet Tablet Blogs
I’d like to see a list of blogs that write about the Nokia 770 and n800 (even those that don’t write about the exclusively). If you know of a blog that falls into that category, leave a note in the comments section. I’ll update this post every few days with the complete list.
John Tokash 