iMac Touch

According to the sleuths at Patently Apple, a blog dedicated to researching and postulating hypotheses based on patents filed by Apple, Apple has over the last couple of years filed several patents that strongly indicate the coming of the touchscreen iMac. Such a device would merge the iPhone’s touch-based interface design and capabilities with the iMac’s considerably larger screen size and processing power.

Along with images from patent applications unmistakably showing devices with user interfaces operated by the familiar touch screen technology, Engadget has reported that Sintek Photonics have been shipping Apple 20-plus-inch touch panels, which they have no doubt been experimenting with in the R&D department as future UIs of the next generation of computers. The question is will this concept, like scores of enticing concept cars, remain at the prototype level or will it actually evolve into a commercial product with an innovative combination of touch screen interface design and the familiar Apple features? Considering the iPad’s reality, the chances of interface design on desktops and laptops having to accommodate both the tiny mouse cursor and our thicker fingers seems all the more likely.

Certainly, the biggest clues to this possible iteration of user interface design of the Mac platform will be gleaned from the next version of Mac OS X. The more it borrows from or moves towards the mobile iOS will be most telling. A touchscreen iMac will have several implications for interface designs. Already the iPad’s screen size in relation to the iPhone has led Jakob Nielsen to comment, “An iPad user interface shouldn’t be a scaled up iPhone UI”. There is also the read-tap asymmetry where text big enough to read is too small to touch. This “fat finger” problem would only be exacerbated when jumping to the iMac’s screen size (which ranges from full HD to even more pixels). Apple would essentially have to revise long-standing Graphical User Interface Design guidelines to accommodate solutions to such problems. When or will a touch based Mac come out? Will it be practical for daily activities and business use? Only time will tell…