Hasta La Gadget!

Um, where to begin? How about a definition:

twinge n. A brief experience of emotion, typically an unpleasant one.

Funny, that’s the reaction we had when first laying eyes on Mobile Mechatronics’ iTwinge iPhone keyboard. At the moment, we’re unclear if the iTwinge electronically docks to the base of the iPhone or if it’s just a $30 (plus shipping) sleeve with Pogo-like coating for capacitive touchscreens. According to the FAQ, the ultra-low power iTwinge “uses the phones power” but doesn’t require any software to work with Apple’s iPhone 3G or 3GS handsets. Regardless, after 4 hours of usage an “average user” will increase typing speed by 30% to 40% with 70% to 80% fewer typing errors. Golly! If you pre-order now you can expect shipment in November. So go ahead, we dare ya. Another pic after the break.

[Via ChipChick]

Continue reading iTwinge: the perfectly named iPhone keyboard

Filed under: Cellphones, Peripherals

iTwinge: the perfectly named iPhone keyboard originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Sep 2009 04:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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For full-touch mobile use, capacitive touchscreens are the best solution we’ve got — and it has absolutely nothing to do with the iPhone, it has to do with the incremental improvement in usability brought about by near-100 percent touch registration. That’s a big deal, because even a 5 percent loss of registration on an on-screen QWERTY keyboard would represent roughly one letter missed every five words (assuming an average word length in the English language of just over 5 letters). Resistive screens have many, many totally valid applications, but put simply, phones aren’t one of them; they’ve been outmoded by a different technology that’s more appropriate for the size and use that the average handset sees. Registration issues aside, fingers are larger than styli, and when a resistive display is registering an unweighted pinpoint coordinate, you end up ironically losing accuracy — a benefit touted by resistive that’s really only realized if you’re using a stylus full-time. No one’s claiming that capacitive screens are the magic elixir to make human digits achieve superhuman accuracy on a tiny screen, but… you know, step one is making sure the phone knows you pressed something.

Anyhow, HTC’s now claiming that the just-announced Tattoo has gone resistive because its 2.8-inch screen is simply too small “to be accurate with” as a capacitive. The company’s tweet goes on to say that resistive “ends up registering fewer miss-clicks,” which could be argued — maybe — were users expected to use styli. Android is not and was never designed as a stylus-driven platform, and unless HTC’s driving in that dubious direction, the claim is bunk. More realistically, the resistive display is probably a cost sacrifice the company made to keep sticker shock to a minimum, which is fair enough — HTC’s trying to cover many market segments with Android, as it should — but we wish they’d been upfront about it.

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

HTC claims Tattoo’s screen is too small for capacitive to work well originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ladies and gentlemen, our long, global nightmare is over. Alright, that’s a significant overstatement — but Nokia’s lack of capacitive adoption has unquestionably hurt opinion of its 5800 and N97 models, the first to use its touch-ready S60 5th Edition platform. Happily, afterdawn.com is reporting — and we’ve been able to independently confirm — that the X6 will indeed be using a capacitive display, something that we suspect will significantly improve usability if you’re not interested in using a stylus (or plectrum, as the case may be) to navigate your way through the interface. For the record, Samsung’s already proven that S60 5th is totally doable with capacitive tech on its i8910 HD, so we’re sure Nokia’s going to be able to pull this off with aplomb — the real question might be whether this signals a wholesale abandonment of resistive across the range. Since resistive’s cheaper, we wouldn’t be surprised to see it continue to hang around on the low end for some time to come, but at least we’ve now got the choice. Sadly, it’s too late to save the N900’s screen — but now that Maemo’s made the bold leap into GSM telephony, maybe we’ll see some worthy capacitive action the next time around.

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Nokia X6 confirmed to sport a capacitive display, we can finally exhale originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Though capacitive displays are generally regarded as the easier-to-use technology for mobile touchscreens, their finger-friendliness comes at a dear price: accuracy. Because capacitive tech is incompatible with traditional styli, you’re stuck fudging things with your fat digits or settling for a high-tech finger alternative that arguably creates as many problems as it solves. Don’t worry, though — HTC feels your pain, and it seems like they’re looking to keep the classic stylus in the game as the company’s lineup makes the inevitable transition to capacitive over the coming years. A new patent application describes a stylus with some sort of magnetically charged tip — at first, we thought that sounded suspiciously like what Wacom does for its tablets, but unlike Wacom’s tech, this would function with a traditional, seemingly unmodified capacitive display. It’s funny how we’ve all written off styli in the past couple years and now we’ve got HTC over here doing everything it can to save ’em — but hey, if this means we’re going to get the best of both worlds, we’re all for it.

[Via wmpoweruser.com]

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

HTC files patent for capacitive stylus with resistive accuracy originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 Aug 2009 00:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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After doing a considerable amount of business with its ClearPad 2000 Series capacitive touchscreens, Synaptics is taking on multitouch in a very serious way with its new ClearPad 3000 Series screens. Synaptics’ existing screens can be found on the G1 and other modern smartphones, but while they offer a small amount of multitouch, they can become easily confused by anything beyond a simple pinch or swipe gesture — and are downright dangerous for typing, thanks to a proclivity to average between two simultaneously touched points. The new ClearPad 3000 screens fight that off with new advances in capacitive technology and a new processor which can handle up to 10 simultaneous finger presses — including some info on the shape and size of each touching finger. The entire screen can actually be tracked pixel-by-pixel, and the new technology allows for up to 8-inch screens without completely destroying battery life. Naturally, these screens will only be as good as the software that uses them (and we still haven’t seen anything to top Stantum’s resistive touchscreen tech), but Synaptics is doing the best it can to work with phone manufacturers (and others) who are designing interfaces for these screens, to make sure they can use the tech right. The first devices using ClearPad 3000 should hit this fall, so we suppose we’ll find out soon enough if it pays off in device usability. There’s a video demonstration of the tech after the break.

Continue reading Synaptics’ ClearPad 3000 touchscreen does 10-finger capacitive multitouch, other forms of dark magics

Filed under: Cellphones, Displays

Synaptics’ ClearPad 3000 touchscreen does 10-finger capacitive multitouch, other forms of dark magics originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Jul 2009 09:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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