Touchscreen Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

TUAW's Daily App: Halcyon

by Mike Schramm (Mar 23rd, 2011)

Halcyon is a game for the iPad by Zach Gage and Kurt Bieg that's part music game and part puzzler. You've got little triangles coming down either side of the screen on various strings, and your goal as the player is to match those up by drawing lines across the strings in the right places. As ...

Apple to use 60 percent of world touchscreen supply in 2011

by Kelly Hodgkins (Feb 17th, 2011)

Apple is buying up touchscreen displays for the 40 million iPad tablets it intends to sell in 2011, and it has scooped up 60 percent of the global touchscreen inventory. Apple has secured most of the touchscreen displays coming off the production line of panel makers Wintek and TPK and has created ...

Apple investigates hover gestures

by Kelly Hodgkins (Jan 27th, 2011)

Apple was awarded a patent on Tuesday for a hover sensitive device that accepts input from finger movements above the device's display. The patent describes the usage of "real-world" gestures to control a device equipped with a touch or hover-sensitive display. Hand and finger movements include ...

Apple patent describes touch gestures on iPod nano

by David Quilty (Jan 3rd, 2011)

Could "no-look" touch gestures be coming soon to the iPod nano? Recently discovered by ipodnn, a 2009 patent application by Apple shows that it is looking into letting users control their devices using no-look gestures that only require a touch-sensitive surface, like a trackpad, and not necessarily ...

Apple patents Cover Flow-like spiral interface

by Mike Schramm (Dec 16th, 2010)

Patently Apple has unearthed a new patent that shows off a Cover Flow-like interface for browsing icons or album covers, only instead of Cover Flow's linear layout, this one organizes content in a spiral. We've seen rotating menus in Apple's patents before, but this looks more involved. It's ...

Apple reportedly adds touchscreen suppliers for iPad 2

by Megan Lavey-Heaton (Dec 16th, 2010)

To add to our growing stockpile of iPad 2 rumors, DigiTimes is reporting that Apple has added two new touchscreen suppliers, Chimei Innolux and Cando, with those shipments to begin in January or February. The article says that expected orders of the iPad 2 will be more than 6 million per month. This ...

TUAW's Daily App: Winta

by Mike Schramm (Dec 14th, 2010)

I first covered Winta (styled WINtA on the App Store) back at GDC Online in October, and found it an enjoyable music game from the creator of Parappa the Rapper, Masaya Matsuura. It's a simple title -- different shapes appear on screen, and the player is meant to tap them in order, which ends up ...

Tactile+Plus adds buttons to your iPhone - kind of

by Mike Schramm (Nov 22nd, 2010)

Steve Jobs dislikes buttons, which is why one of the most premier gaming devices in the world has no tactile feedback whatsoever. But there's still a call for finding buttons on the screen by feel alone, and Tactile+Plus is designed to let you do just that. It's a little plastic sticker sheet that ...

Next-gen touchscreen displays may support gloves

by Sam Abuelsamid (Nov 11th, 2010)

Once upon a time, it was possible to dial a cell phone in cold weather without removing your gloves, provided the gloves weren't too fat and the physical buttons on the phone weren't too small. In this modern age of smartphones dominated by capacitive touchscreens, it takes either bare skin or ...

Sculpt a 3D model using the iPad's touchscreen and accelerometer

by Mike Schramm (Nov 9th, 2010)

This is very cool -- Beautiful Modeler is a software tool used between an iPad and a MacBook above to gesturally sculpt a 3D model using the iPad's touchscreen. As you can see, the iPad works as a controller for the app running on the MacBook, and not only is touchscreen information passed on ...

Turn your iPhone or iPod touch into a gamepad with stick-on buttons

by Sam Abuelsamid (Nov 7th, 2010)

Software developers have been able to do some amazing things with games on portable devices like the iPhone and iPod touch, but just as some people prefer to type on a physical keyboard, gamers occasionally miss using a gamepad. A Japanese company has come up with a stick on plastic nubs that you ...

HP responds to Jobs about touchscreen PCs

by Sam Abuelsamid (Nov 3rd, 2010)

Steve Jobs has never been averse to exaggeration or verbal misdirection when discussing features publicly. However, Hewlett-Packard's Ken Bosley has taken issue with Jobs' recent comments on touchscreen PCs. During the recent Back to the Mac press event, Steve had this to say: "...Touch surfaces ...

Troll Touch announces 27-inch touchscreen Cinema Displays

by Sam Abuelsamid (Oct 28th, 2010)

Even if Apple CEO Steve Jobs isn't interested (for now at least) in giving his followers a touchscreen desktop computing experience, Troll Touch is. The company has added touchscreen monitors to its existing lineup with a pair of options based on the latest 27-inch LED-backlit Cinema Display. ...

Touchscreen iMac? Not so fast

by Dave Caolo (Oct 5th, 2010)

Earlier this week, DigiTimes reported that Sintek Photonics was producing touch panels to be used in a touch-based iMac, and that demo units had been shipped to Cupertino for testing. Today, Sintek is denying the claim. Once again DigiTimes has the story. Barry Wu, VP and spokesperson of Sintek, ...

Landscape or portrait? It's all about software ergonomics

by Michael Grothaus (Oct 2nd, 2010)

When we think about computer ergonomics, we usually look at how our monitor is positioned (is it an appropriate distance from our eyes?), where our keyboard is laid out (in a keyboard tray or on our desktop?), and if our chair height lets us keep our knees at a 90 degree angle. In other words, ...