Apple planning a "hot pants" device with the controls in the back?

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

Devin Coldewey is a Seattle-based writer and photographer. He has written for the TechCrunch network since 2007. Some posts he’d like you to read: The Dangers of Externalizing Knowledge | Generation i | Surveillant Society | Choose Two | Frame Wars | The User’s Manifesto | Our Great Sin His personal website is coldewey.cc. → Learn More

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Yes, I just made up the “hot pants” device right now. You remember that song? “Hot pants… with the zipper in the back. Any color will do… any color will do.” No? Well I like the term, and I’m keeping it. Is this going to be a problem?

Good. A hot pants device, then, has the controls on the back, and you manipulate stuff by seeing through it or possibly just by instinct. These Apple patents seem to indicate such an interface on a little lozenge-type device with a “force-sensitive touch based surface.” You mean you have to be a Jedi to use this thing?

MaCNN calls it a “stunning nano-phone,” but to me it really just looks like some pre-emptive patent-getting for the click wheel and some other stuff, should transparent OLED displays become viable. Of course, being all screen, this particular device doesn’t seem to have anywhere to put the device, but that’s something we’ll let future Apple work out.

[via BGR and MobileSyrup]

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