Touch sensitive back for next iPhone?

Stephen Withers
Friday, 15 January 2010 04:01

Opinion and Analysis

Rumours are circulating that the next iPhone may have a touch-sensitive panel on the back of the case. That's not as radical an idea as you might first think.

Rumours that the 2010 iPhone may incorporate a touch panel on the case back appear to stem from comments made by Goldman Sachs analyst Robert Chen to Bloomberg.

According to that article, Chen expects to see a Magic Mouse style shell providing touch sensitive features.

It remains to be seen whether that expectation is based on solid information obtained from people inside Apple or its suppliers, or whether it is speculation based on the recent announcement of the Motorola Backflip, which does feature a touch pad on the back of the screen.

Apple is known to have researched the use of touch pads attached to the back surface of handheld devices. Immediately prior to the iPhone's original announcement in January 2007, Apple filed a patent application entitled "Back-Side Interface for Hand-Held Devices" (20070103454).

The application points out some of the disadvantages of touch screens for devices such as phones and media players: using a finger obscures a significant part of the display; control elements may be smaller than a fingertip; and the display surface becomes smudged.

The proposed arrangement uses a force-sensitive surface to distinguish between a light touch to position the transparent cursor on the screen, and heavier pressure to activate a control.

The application describes various ways that such a facility could be implemented, including the provision of an etched back panel so that particular areas can be identified by touch alone.

The inventor named in the application is John G Elias, professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Delaware. Elias' technology was commercialised through a company called FingerWorks, which was acquired by Apple prior to the iPhone's introduction.

Similar technology can be seen in Mitsubishi's LucidTouch device and the NanoTouch prototype developed at the University of Toronto.

So yes, a back touch panel iPhone is plausible. But whether it's really coming in 2010 is another question.

Most commentators are expecting a mid-year launch for the next iPhone.