Alternate touchpads

June 18th, 2006 | by dnw |

g5 ipod
Over on Binary Bonsai blog, some thoughts about the Scrollwheel Sensitivity of the fifth generation iPods caught my interest:

Did you know the iPod scrollwheel, on 5G iPods at least, is sensitive enough to be operated through the leather pouch that comes with the iPod? It’s true. It’s even sensitive enough to be operated through my shirt pocket.

This is very nice indeed, though I have seen some of the Reboot participants looking strangely at me as I circle my finger around my nipple…

Okay, even though my thoughts are around skin, I’m not going near the nipple comment…. My thoughts turned to the inoperability in some circumstances of the generic touchpads found on most laptop compters and especially how they require skin touch to operate.

I was thinking that if the same technology used in these 5G iPod scrollwheels could be applied to a touchpad of a laptop, a new generation input method could spring up that wasn’t reliant on skin sensitivity. Sometimes I think as an industry things get caught in a rut which stiffles innovation .

Who knows, if a pointer based on this idea caught on it my just save me from a visit to the morgue and taping a finger to the end of my mouthstick!

Meanwhile, if anyone has details of how these scroll wheels work, please leave a comment.

[tags]apple, ipod, scrollwheel, touchpad, notebook, laptop[/tags]

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  1. 12 Responses to “Alternate touchpads”

  2. By fang on Jun 19, 2006 | Reply

    Dude – how aboot sharing some of your lateral attempts to circumvent the finger from the morgue scenario! Surely the lifekludger has tried damp salty cloth, strange fabrics, or other lateral approaches.

  3. By Dave the Lifekludger on Jun 19, 2006 | Reply

    Yes Fang. The only other thing I’ve tried is to wrap the end of my stick in that anti-static greyish-black plastic they sometimes wrap electrical components in for shipping. I also tried laying at a film across the pad.

    Neither works real well. It tends to be jerky and after a while stops working. Must build up charge or loose charge or something to do with charge. Besides which, plastic stuck on my stick is not a good thing for typing and other things I do with my stick. My stick is a multi-tasker!

    Thinking about charge, maybe a dead persons finger would work either…would probably have lost all it’s charge…besides being smelly.

  4. By Madam on Jun 20, 2006 | Reply

    Hi Dave. I’ve read about how the iPod click wheel works, but the detail escapes me. I think it’s similar to the way a laptop touch pad works if I remember rightly the click wheel is made by Synaptics http://www.synaptics.com/ the makers of touch pads and the like.

    If you do a search at http://www.ilounge.com/ (an iPod geek site) you might find out more about the click wheel specifically.

    BTW This sxcore thing is really frustrating. I’m tired and unwell and I cant figure out how to login with it. I have a login, enter my password; that works and then I don’t have a clue how to get back here and enter my comment. I’ve had to do this using a different e-mail address. As I said I’m tired, sorry…

  5. By Madam on Jun 20, 2006 | Reply

    Hi Dave. It’s morning and I’m not so tired. Here’s some background information on the iPod click wheel:

    The secret behind the iPod’s scrollwheel
    http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6450_7-5512416-1.html

    It appears that Synaptics no longer make the click wheel, see http://ce.seekingalpha.com/article/3823, Apple may be doing it themselves now. According to this article the current iPod models don’t have the Synaptics wheel. However I can tell you that the current (iPod 5th generation, nano) and the previous (iPod 4th generation) click wheels are functionally the same.

    This article describes (with pictures) pulling an iPod nano, including the click wheel to bits, http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/nano.ars/4

    Hope you find this information useful. If not, perhaps I’ve given you enough information to do some further research. I’m sure I’ve seen other articles about the click wheel. I just can’t find them today.

  6. By Dave the Lifekludger on Jun 20, 2006 | Reply

    Paul. Sorry to hear you had probs with sxore. Thanks for persisting and lewaving the comment.

    Re Clickwheel – I’m surprised if it uses the same touch sensitive idea as a touchpad….Iu mean, the guy quoted used it through his shirt. Didn’t think it’d work at all without direct contact.

    Thanks. Take care.

  7. By Dave the Lifekludger on Jun 20, 2006 | Reply

    Brilliant, thanks buddy! I’ll check those links out.

  8. By Madam on Jun 20, 2006 | Reply

    Hi Again. Yes the click wheel definitely works though fabric. For example the current iPods come with a slip case made of fabric about the thickness of leather, say used in a wallet, and you can use the click wheel through that. I haven’t done this extensively so I can’t say how accurate the response is, however for simple functions like adjusting the volume, it’s fine. I don’t have a laptop with a touch pad handy otherwise I’d test for you if it is possible to do the same thing.

  9. By Dave the Lifekludger on Jun 20, 2006 | Reply

    Paul, can you try operating the iPod with something other than your finger or other body part…say, like with a pen, or better still, a rubber thimble on end of a pen?

  10. By Madam on Jun 20, 2006 | Reply

    Hi Dave. I just tried it now with a rubber thimble on the end of a pen. It works, but not as well as with a finger. A lot more pressure is required, the click wheel is not as responsive and is harder to control, particularly on menus.

    I also tried the pen without the thimble and it was nearly as good as with a finger.

    Have you looked on apple.com, they may have some information there?

    Hope this helps.

    Paul

  11. By Dave the Lifekludger on Jun 20, 2006 | Reply

    Paul, yes this helps wonderfully! It confirms my assumptions that the current clickwheel is not skin sensitive like the notebook touchpads. It still means I can’t use a MacBook on its own with the touchpad they have though – like 90% odd of all other notebooks. :-( Bugger.

  12. By Chris Hutcherson on Oct 3, 2008 | Reply

    I am a bit worried that the Nano 4 feels too light and is so thin that it will easily break under pressure.

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