New Patent Points to Stylus for Tablet

Posted by Editor on Jan 15, 2010 in Apple, Tablets

MacRumors points out a new patent recently filed by Apple regarding the use of a stylus for input on a touch screen.

Given Steve Jobs’ distaste for styluses, it comes as a surprise that Apple has recently applied for a patent application exploring the use of a stylus for the capacitive touch sensors found on the iPhone. Unlike the recently revived Newton patent, this new patent was actually filed with today’s technology in mind.

We had our an engineer friend look this over and it’s kind of an interesting peek into what might be a feature of the upcoming Apple Tablet. What this patent essentially covers is the use of a special stylus tip that would permit highly accurate input on a screen primarily designed for touch use.

Think about it- if the tablet is a 10.1-inch touch screen device it would also be perfect for drawing artwork and retouching photos, not to mention actual cursive handwriting. Tablets used for drawing and Photoshop are nothing new, Wacom’s offered them for years, some with underlying screens. What would be cool would be a dual-purpose screen that is equally accurate at touch input and stylus input. No one is hoping to regress back to the stylus only input days of Palm and even the Newton, but as a secondary, optional input device this has a lot of merit.

Also what’s even more intriguing is that the patent mentions this technique could be implemented via a firmware update. So perhaps we won’t only see a stylus on the tablet but it will also be retrofitted to existing iPhones, opening them up to a host of more accurate input. You could sign checks, draw freehand, carefully touch up photos. Hmmmmm.

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Tags: Apple, AppleTablet, iPhone, MacRumors, Steve Jobs, Stylus, Touchscreen, Wacom