trickykitty: (Default)
Nicole ([personal profile] trickykitty) wrote2008-11-01 10:23 am
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My Head Gears Are Working Again

The MacBook Touch is {hopefully} soon to begin it's debut process as Mac and iPhone users the world round wait and wait and....

This video shows two images at 35-38 seconds into the video of a mock-up docking station concept as explained in this article here.

I'm all for Apple really looking at this idea and pushing it to fruition, and I'll go it one step further.

I have drooled for a long time over PC tablets, but so far I have been unimpressed with the lack of touch sensitivity offered with Windows note-taking software. As a writing perfectionist who also dabbles in mathematical equations and graphics, I can't stand crooked line strokes and figures that look like a child drew them, yet that is exactly what I saw when given the chance play with a fellow classmate's tablet. The theoretical MacBook Touch promises much more sensitivity, but it also gets rid of the textile keyboard that I also covet in a laptop.

Imagine a portable touch screen ~8x12 (sheet of paper) sized computer the depth of a typical 100 page spiral notebook. That's simple enough, as the Mac Air is already smaller than that. Now give it a 360-degree hinge that contains a pop-out/swivel* keyboard.

*For an idea of what I mean by a "swivel" keyboard, notice the images at 52-55 seconds in the same video above. It shows a phone with a theoretical "swivel" face in which two pivot points are located 1/2 of the way down both sides of the face thus allowing it to spin in place. Now just add some sort of securing feature so that the face/keyboard can either swivel 180-degrees and lock into place in both positions or pop out and separate completely from the frame.

Now, since the screen is fully touch screen compatible, not only let it have both landscape and portrait views, but also 180-degree landscape as well. READ: you can also turn the damn thing upside down and it will orient correctly. Ahhhhhh - yes indeed this feature is what would open up the capabilities of the gadget.

Possibilities:
1) You could use it as a regular laptop with both keyboard and touch-screen capability.

2) You could swing the keyboard part to the back side and swivel the keyboard itself within its frame so that it faces towards the back side of the monitor section (thereby protecting the keyboard from accidental touching) - this now creates a typical touch-screen tablet, which is essentially the ONLY goal of the MacBook Touch concept as far as I can tell.

3) Pop the keyboard out, swing the frame of the keyboard section open slightly and turn the whole thing upside-down. It's now essentially a desktop docking station just like the original video image I had you take notice of. With the keyboard communicating wirelessly, the computer can be connected to any other form of monitor/projector device in the case that you want to see your work on a larger screen.

I like this little ménage à trois concept a lot.

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