Touchscreen gloves, not touchscreen finger tips

A big problem I’ve had with previous versions of touchscreen gloves has been that other manufacturers seem to think a couple conductive pads on the index and middle finger will make sure you’re covered. But sometimes that approach means using them will result in missed touches, and make using devices fiddly and generally inconvenient.

The Mujjo gloves get around that limitation by featuring conductive thread throughout the entire weave of the glove’s body; literally any part of it, including the cuff, can activate your device’s touchscreen. When you’re trying to find directions in the middle of a snowstorm so dense you can only see about a foot in front of you, this makes a big difference.

Comfortable and sturdy

Mujjo’s gloves fit, pardon the pun, like a glove. They come in two size ranges: S/M and M/L, and are designed to stretch to accommodate different hand shapes. My M/L are a perfect fit, and the S/M worked as well for my girlfriend. They have a dense weave that means you won’t see skin through any holes anywhere on the glove, even when stretched. And they should also stand up to a fair bit of abuse; they don’t feel delicate or liable to start coming apart at the seams anytime soon, and I used them for a fair amount of outdoor rough-housing with my (admittedly small and relatively gentle) dog. Note however that the Mujjo gloves are not machine washable, and should only be washed by hand with cold water and laid flat to dry.

Warm, but not the warmest

While the Mujjo gloves were more than adequate at most temperatures, they did not deal well with the extreme cold of a day that reached around 1 or 2 degrees Fahrenheit. They were still better than nothing at those lows, but I still felt the need to use my pockets with fair frequency. At more reasonable temperatures of around 20 to 23 Fahrenheit, the gloves proved more than comfortable, even during longer periods of 30 minutes or more outside.

The total package

I’ve tried a few touchscreen-compatible gloves, but the Mujjos are already my favorite. They look good (though they do only come in one color), they feel good on the hand and provide adequate warmth, and they work as well as bare skin on every capacitive touchscreen I could find to test them with. At around $32 U.S. per pair plus shipping, they aren’t exactly cheap, but if touchscreen compatibility is what you’re after, these gloves are a bargain.

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Besides the description of a “curved-glass,” wrist-top iPod with Siri controls, the NYT‘s report is light on specifics, saying mostly a “small” team within Apple is tasked with dreaming up and prototyping wearable computing devices. But forming a picture of what Apple could do with wearable tech, based on the examples of other early pioneers in the space, Apple’s own patent applications, and recent changes in the tech it uses in its mobile devices.

Plan for the PAN

Apple will almost certainly try to exploit the onboard connectivity technology of its mobile devices to make users and their gear walking personal area networks of real-time feedback and communication. It took another definite step in that direction with the addition of Bluetooth 4.0 to the iPhone 4S, MacBook Air and Mac mini, and its recent efforts to promote the low-power, low-latency Bluetooth tech among iPhone, iPad and iPod accessory makers.

Bluetooth 4.0 is key to Apple’s wearable device strategy, because it could potentially allow wearable devices to talk to a central command device, in all likelihood an iPhone or iPad, without taxing battery life to the point where using it entails more pain than gain. If it’s promoting the tech heavily to outside developers, you can bet it’s betting on it internally, too.

Keep your smartphone close, but your data closer

Existing wearable computing devices hint at what could be on the horizon from Apple, albeit probably in a much more roughshod form than Apple would ever ship. Devices like the Meta Watch and inPulse smartwatch already deliver wrist-based notifications of messages, calls, emails and more from your smartphone. People already keep their smartphones no further than three feet away in most situations, on average, says the NYT, but smart watches bring the information and communication they provide closer still.

If Apple is indeed working on a curved-glass, wrist-wearable iPod, it’s also likely testing ways in which this device can talk to your iPhone to provide a steady stream of meaningful information. The iPod nano, with its countless watch-band accessories, is basically already crying out for this kind of functionality.

Patents and prototypes pave the way

Apple rarely takes breaks from filing new patents and working with supply chain partners on mysterious products, and some of those designs paint a picture of a wearable device future. The NYT‘s description of a curved glass iPod, for instance, resonates with a report from September that claimed Apple was getting ready to release products with curved touchscreens early in 2012.

Apple also has some general patents in play that could come in handy for small, wearable devices, like one for making portable devices out of lighter-weight materials with new, advanced construction methods, and descriptions of methods for using non-physical, non-visual control schemes (of which Siri is just one example) for future devices. That last patent talks about providing tactile feedback, which could be very useful for a computing device strapped to one’s person.

Mobile gets personal

Wearable computing is definitely a trend, and though right now it’s in its infancy and running into early-stage problems (the Jawbone UP recall, for example), it’s quickly accumulating momentum (the UP’s success despite its shortcomings, for example). Apple may not be on the cutting edge of this trend right now, as the relatively non-communicative iPod nano hardly counts, but it has the ingredients to take wearable devices mainstream: a massive existing iOS user base, and the right tech, both currently shipping and in active development.

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The Sensu will work with any app on the iPad (SketchBook Pro is a good candidate), and even when closed, the reverse end of the tool can be used as a normal, nub-ended stylus. Plus, the Sensu is also really good-looking, in either a chrome or limited edition gunmetal finish.

Sensu is a Kickstarter-backed project, but you won’t have to worry about whether or not it will ever become a reality. It has already exceeded its funding goal by about $12,500. Funding is still open, though, so you can pledge either $25 to get the basic chrome edition, or $75 to get the special gunmetal version. Retail price for the basic Sensu will start at an estimated $30-35, and pre-orders for Kickstarter backers ship sometime around January.

Kickstarter really is my go-to resource for cool new iOS device accessories, and the Sensu is a great example of why. Check out the prototype in action to see how well the Sensu mimics a traditional painting experience.

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The Cosmonaut is the first iPad stylus design I’ve seen that really takes into account the unique restrictions and concerns of using a stylus in combination with a large, capacitive touchscreen. I own a few different iPad-compatible styli, but the Pogo Sketch from Ten One Design is my weapon of choice. Even though it’s my preferred tool, that doesn’t make it necessarily a great one. I still have plenty of issues with the screen reading my palm as confusing secondary input, and using the iPad as one would a traditional pen and pad combo just doesn’t work (though some apps provide automatic wrist detection, making it a little bit easier).

Unlike the Pogo Sketch and many other similar iPad styli, the Cosmonaut doesn’t take the pen as its design inspiration; instead, it looks to the whiteboard marker. It’s a concept that Cosmonaut co-creator Dan Provost made a reality back in November with his own DIY build, and one that he and partner Tom Gerhardt clearly saw long-term value in. Provost argues that writing on an iPad doesn’t resemble using a pen because of low-fidelity, and because wresting your palm on the device’s surface is a no-no. Instead, it pretty accurately mirrors how we use whiteboards, ie. for quick and dirty recording of ideas and info. Artists definitely are capable of creating masterpieces on the iPad, but for most users, the point is to get an idea sketched out quickly without much attention given to the finer points.

I also like that the Cosmonaut seems to have a small rubber tip, as opposed to the traditional felt-style ones that are used on most current capacitive styli. And just like the Glif, this new stylus design looks like an amazing study in simple, elegant, product engineering that emphasizes extreme usability.

As a Kickstarter-backed project, the Cosmonaut will require the commitment of individual backers to reach its funding goal. This time around, Provost and Gerhardt tried a slightly different approach to the one used by most Kickstarter projects. Instead of setting thresholds with different rewards for each level ($25 secures you a pre-order, $45 scores you two, etc.), they’re asking investors to put up whatever they think the device is worth. Any amount over $1 nets a pre-order of the Cosmonaut, though the final retail price will be around $25. It’s a very interesting experiment, especially given that the reward is limited to 3,000 backers, meaning that if everyone pledges the bare minimum, the project’s $50,000 funding target definitely won’t be met.

It’s a risky strategy, but one that should prove a telling glimpse into what kind of premium people put on good design. Check out the video below of the product in action and think about what you’d pay for such a device. If you feel like sharing that figure in the comments, I’d love to hear what you think.

Update: I reached out to Dan and Tom, and they responded to my questions just after this article published. Here are the questions I sent, and their responses in full:

TAB: Why go with the pay-what-you-want model this time around? What happens if you hit your backer limit before you hit your funding goal?

Tom: Dan and I decided to try a pay-what-you-want model because we were interested in the social aspects of it, and we wanted to give back to the Kickstarter community. If we reach our backer limit, but have not met our funding goal, we think a very interesting dynamic will build from the backers of the project. Will there be advocates? Will there be big contributors who tip the balance? Will the price go above, below, above the funding goal? We’ll see, but it will be an exciting first for the web.

TAB: What did your success with the Glif teach you about Kickstarter-funded projects, and has what you learned affected what you’re doing this time around with the Cosmonaut?

Tom: The Glif taught us that you can never be too simple. Although we strove for simplicity with the Glif, we still managed to confuse some of our backers, so this time around we tried to keep it dead simple. We also leaned to never underestimate the power and generosity of the crowd, so this time around we put our full trust in them.

TAB: On the back of the Glif’s success, you probably could’ve easily secured more traditional VC funding for this project. Why go back to Kickstarter?

Tom: Dan and I want to maintain our direct relationship with our customers, really our collaborators. So for us, Kickstarter makes perfect sense. They let us know how they like the product, we keep them informed through the process, and they keep us honest. All of which we lose through VC.

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The new report is in keeping with earlier supplier news coming from DigiTimes, and states that Sintek Photronics, which had formerly been cited as the company Apple chose to provide the touchscreen panels for the new iMac, has sent samples of the hardware to be used for testing purposes. Apple will reportedly be incorporating the batch of panels into the latest version of the iMac, presumably as a step toward introducing them in production models for wide release.

The production of touchscreens exceeding 20-inches is highly specialized, and Sintek is one of the few companies out there with the expertise needed, so it makes sense that Apple would tap them for this project. Among the drawbacks of large touchscreens housed behind glass is diminished brightness capacity. On the plus side, good viewing angles are possible, and the displays should be anymore hefty with touchscreen tech built-in.

Now despite my tendency to touch my desktop’s screen absent-mindedly on occasion, I’m on record as being not all that interested in a touchscreen iMac, at least not with OS X. I’ve since had the opportunity to use my iPad as an additional monitor thanks to AirDisplay, and that only reinforced my original opinion. The Magic Trackpad is also a new introduction since that piece, and I actually really enjoy using it with my iMac, but it’s a far cry from a touchscreen.

If Apple provides an experience designed from the ground up for touch on the iMac, both in terms of hardware and software, then I’m in. Otherwise, it’s just another expensive, extraneous feature that adds to the cost of an already fairly pricey machine.

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The new form factor is quite small (only marginally larger than the shuffle, in fact, at around 1.5 inches square). The 1.54-inch TFT touchscreen boasts a resolution of 240×240, which should be plenty for showing off the album artwork or even getting a look at some of your favorite pics. It could also work well as fancy watch, as one Apple exec is planning on using it, according to Jobs.

Despite the presence of the touchscreen, the new nano is not without physical buttons. There’s a sleep/wake one on top, along with who physical volume +/- controls. Ports on the bottom include a 3.5mm headphone jack and the standard 30-pin dock connector.

Multitouch features include swiping to navigate the home screen, and to return from the home screen from anywhere. You can also swipe up and down to browse through lists, and rotate using the two-finger gesture iOS users are used to. Double-tap on photos to zoom, and touch and hold to re-arrange your home screen app icons.

Shake to shuffle, Genius mixes and playlists are also all included, as is FM radio with Live Pause. VoieOver is also included, as is built-in Nike+ support. As Jobs pointed out, the nano is probably the best option for those looking for a fitness-specific portable music device.

I probably shouldn’t even dare to dream, but if Apple eventually allows third-party devs to create mini-apps for the new nano, I’ll grab one in a second. It would make an awesome feature watch clipped to a wristband, though it would be even better with Bluetooth A2DP support for stereo headsets.

The new nano comes in seven colors, including a (PRODUCT)RED special edition, for $149 for the 8GB version, or $179.00 for double the storage capacity at 16GB.

Anyone getting one of these?

But when is touch too much? The latest rumors, coming from the Chinese-language Commercial Times newspaper, as reported by DigiTimes, suggest that Apple will be launching a brand new addition to the iMac line in 2010 with a touch-enabled display. If the report is accurate, the new iMac would have a 22-inch screen, in between the current 21.5-inch and 27-inch models.

The report is based on a supplier called Quanta supposedly receiving the outsourcing contract to make the machines, with Sintek Photronic supplying the necessary touchscreen panels. The rumor is at least plausible, and even a likely next step coming from a manufacturer like Apple that has consistently done touch well and introduced it across much of its product line in some form or another. The question isn’t whether or not Apple will do it, it’s whether or not it should.

I get a tablet computer. I understand what that’s for, how people will use it, and how, thanks to mobility, touch controls make sense. I can’t say the same thing for touch-enabled desktops, except in special cases. For retail, sure, and for restaurants and other similar industry applications where touch has been used because it makes an exceeding amount of sense to do so, that I understand. But as I sit at my home office typing up this post, I wonder if I would derive any benefit by being able to control my iMac by touching the screen versus using my mouse.

In fact, I already sort of have touchscreen computing capability in my iMac, via a connected Wacom Cintiq monitor. Admittedly, you have to use a stylus, so it isn’t exactly the same, but I still finding myself abstaining from using it for anything but drawing and photo editing. Even the Sony Vaio L (check out the second “Con”) and other PCs already on the market with the tech built-in strike me as fairly silly. I’ve used them on display in Best Buy and the like, but that’s an entirely different thing from sitting at a desk and using it for many hours at a time.

Touch control will also be shoehorned into a number of different applications. Unlike the more expensive versions of Windows 7, Snow Leopard isn’t designed to work on a touch-enabled machine, and neither are any of the Mac apps you’d be using with your computer. I can see flick scrolling and image browsing being a bit of a boon, but not enough to merit the inclusion of the tech, especially when it would mean constantly having to switch from using the mouse to interacting with the screen in all likelihood.

Where touchscreen desktop computing has been introduced, it has faced questions about how truly useful and effective it is. Galen Gruman at TechWorld describes his disappointment with the Windows 7 implementation of touch in a piece that soberly addresses the tech’s current shortcomings. In this excerpt, he discusses some UI and feedback problems with the idea:

[O]n a touchscreen, your hand and arm obscure your view of where your fingertip actually is, making it hard to actually touch the intended radio button, close box, slider, or what-have-you. It doesn’t help that these elements are often small. And there’s no tactile feel to substitute for the lost visual feedback.

It’s far from his only strike against touchscreen desktop computing, but even on its own, it describes an issue so annoying as to set me against the concept of a touch sensitive iMac, at least until the next generation of OS X takes touchscreen computing as its focus instead of as an afterthought or add-on.

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Two Taiwanese companies are cited in the report as having received the contracts for the aluminum casings and the touchscreen panels that the upcoming Apple slate will use in its construction. If true, this means that the tablet will indeed sport an aluminum enclosure, and I’d expect something akin to the unibody construction process used in the MacBook Pro casing to be applied here. Imagine the build quality of that machine, without a hinge as a point of weakness. It’ll be quite hardy.

AVY Precision Technology is said to be the supplier for the cases. The company manufactures covers for various electronic devices. The cases haven’t yet begun production, though they will very soon, according to Reuters’ sources:

“Production of the cases will begin in February, so everything points to a second-quarter launch right now,” said one of the sources. “It doesn’t take that long for the company to assemble the PC together, but a second-quarter shipment date is what we’re looking at now.”

As for the touchscreen panels, the sources cite TPK Solutions as yet another supplier for that component of the devices. It joins Wintek, which is reportedly already producing panels for the tablet, too. Apple seems to be preparing for a fairly ambitious initial production run. The panels have reportedly already begun shipping.

The timing of the orders and shipments implies a second-quarter 2010 launch for the device.

I’m of the opinion that this new rumor is fairly reliable, for a few reasons. First, at CES last week, many manufacturers took the opportunity to try to steal some of Apple’s tablet thunder by unveiling slate-type computers and media devices themselves, Microsoft and HP being the most notable among them. Second, in the wake of the Mac Observer piece by a former Apple marketing manager revealing the internal workings of and purposes behind Apple’s intentional leaks, this latest rumor seems to fit the bill pretty well.

Stoking the rumor fires with relatively inconsequential information about parts suppliers manages to draw some of the attention back to Apple and away from competitors, while not really revealing any major new details about the upcoming device — except for the aluminum casing thing, which could actually be pretty cool.

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If you’ve got one of Axiotron’s awesome Modbooks, and you’re running Snow Leopard, you may have already stumbled across a few features that make your Mac so much easier to use. It’s unlikely Apple had Axiotron in mind when it included these features, though, so what’s the real story here?

Cult of Mac believes the features confirm Apple’s intent to release an OS X-based tablet device sometime in the near future (or near enough that Snow Leopard will still be relevant, at least). And when you consider the signs, its hard to believe that isn’t what the company is planning.

First, there’s Exposé in the Dock. The Dock itself is already built for fingertip usage, and to have it included in Exposé is just icing on the cake. Stacks Grid view, with its nice, large, oh-so-pressable icons, which now also includes scrolling and subfolder navigation, is a definite touchscreen plus. Also, being able to adjust icon size using a slider right at the bottom of every Finder window is a great accessibility option, but even more so if you consider the possibility of wanting to make those icons even more fingertip friendly.

Finally, Cult of Mac points out the feather in the cap of the touchscreen argument — a built-in, scalable on-screen virtual keyboard. As someone who uses a Wacom Cintiq 12WX regularly with my Mac, and sometimes without the aid of keyboard or mouse, I’ve long used OS X’s Keyboard Viewer (available as an option in the Input Menu) to hunt and peck type with my stylus. That feature gets a much-needed upgrade in Snow Leopard, since it becomes fully resizable. In fact, Keyboard Viewer is now capable of displaying keys larger than the MacBook Pro’s hardware keyboard.

In Snow Leopard, Keyboard and Character Viewer have both been moved from the International preferences pane to the Keyboard menu, which makes a lot more sense in general, but especially if you consider the Keyboard Viewer an input tool and not just a keypress indicator for screencasts, as the old, less functional version seemed to be.

The lack of officially supported hardware will make it hard to dig much deeper into Snow Leopard’s touchscreen secrets. For all we know, it could support multitouch gestures similar to those usable with the trackpad right now, out of the box. People with Modbooks might be able to uncover some other touch-friendly refinements, and I know I’ll be poking around with my Wacom stylus to see what else I can find, but only Apple knows the true extent of Snow Leopard’s touchscreen prowess.

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Even though I will warn you, as I was warned, that these videos are almost certainly clever fakes, the Mac addict portion of your brain will likely still experience a pleasurable thrill when you see them. I first saw these over at Cult of Mac, but they’ve been making the rounds, with TechCrunch and Gizmodo also weighing in on the veracity of these movies purporting to show the upcoming Apple tablet device in action, running iPhone OS.

Note that this isn’t claiming to depict a production model of the tablet, but rather some kind of development hardware toolkit in action, which is supposedly why the volume controls and other buttons are located on that external hardware controller device and not on the tablet itself. Additional screenshots have been posted to the MacRumors forums, with some showing the “About” panel, mobile Safari in action, etc.

The problem is, if this is supposed to show something that’s actually made by Apple, then it’s very early days indeed. Apps mostly seem to run in their original resolution, so that you end up with what looks like a bunch of different iPhones running simultaneously on the same screen. Assuming the device was anywhere near complete enough to be in the hands of a few lucky developers, I’d also have to say that Apple would likely have done a little more work on its own basic software suite.

Despite the iPhone-emulator feel of the demo, it is undoubtedly cool, and whoever has invested the time and money to come up with this deserves massive kudos for doing so. At the very least, it appears to allow true app multi-tasking, which is something that actually makes the concept of a large-scale iPod touch-type device genuinely appealing. The dock-like app bar at the bottom of the screen is another great idea, since a home screen-style setup on a device this size would probably make for a rather cluttered UI.

There is a very small chance this could be real, and if it is, it raises a lot of questions about how Apple will deal with running iPhone apps on significantly different hardware (the keyboard, for instance, which can’t possibly stay relegated to a small, fixed space), and how third-party developers will deal with the same issues. Really, the whole thing makes me suspect that a straight-up port of iPhone OS for such a device really isn’t the best solution, and that instead a Snow Leopard install that takes some touchscreen cues from 3.0 makes much more sense.

Check out the videos below.

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Do I have $800 to spend on yet another Apple device that bridges the (relatively small) gap between my iPhone and my 13-inch MacBook Pro? Not really. But if rumors prove true and this October does indeed see the launch of a small tablet device priced in that area coming out of Cupertino, I will be hard-pressed not to find an excuse to pick one up. In my dream of dreams, such a device would also be Wacom penabled, but Apple rarely seems to take into account my opinion when designing new products.

Regardless, I’m probably better off earmarking that $800 as pretty much spent, according to new reports from Chinese tech news site Info Times. The site, which is renowned for reporting rumors and leaks on the supply chain side of Apple’s operations, is now saying that the tech giant is set to begin actual production on a 9.7-inch touchscreen device, aimed at competing with the netbook market. $800 is still a far cry from the $300 to $400 most basic netbooks will cost, but who’s counting?

The suppliers who’ve received orders from Apple for parts for the device are the usual suspects, including Foxconn, Wintek and Dynapack. Rumors have long been circulating that Wintek has been tapped to provide screens around 9.7-inches in size, so if nothing else, this latest rumor is at least consistent with previous ones. No other details about the device are made specific in the article, including whether or not it will also have some kind of keyboard, what OS or software it will use, or what kind of hardware specs it will have under the hood.

Let the wild guesses begin. For my part, I think Steve Jobs & Co. must have something fairly out of the ordinary in mind if they want to release an $800 device to compete in a market that really tops out around $500. Jobs once remarked that Apple didn’t “know how to make a $500 computer that’s not a piece of junk, and our DNA will not let us ship that,” but will consumers see the $300 worth of value-add that goes into this new device, should the rumored price point prove accurate?

I think that Apple is probably counting on establishing a new device category rather than competing with the netbook market. Basically, it looks to me like it wants to recreate its success with the iPhone by porting the same incredibly versatile software platform to a device more suited to browsing, video playback, and touchscreen gaming. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was compatible with some kind of keyboard peripheral, which would give you maximum portability with the option to add girth, along with productivity enhancement should you need it. With 3G-capable netbooks popping up in deals with U.S. wireless providers, I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple announces a similar partnership to offset the high cost of this tablet, either.

It will be hard for Apple to thread the needle, so to speak, on a device which arguably fits into a very small niche in its existing line of offerings, but the company has been known to tap unexplored markets before, so we’ll have to wait and see if it can pull it off yet again.

Photo courtesy of flickr user factoryjoe.

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The nexus of Ms. Heffernan’s iPhone discontent was mainly an issue that I can identify with — her dislike of the Apple device’s touchscreen virtual keyboard. I also detest touchscreens, and even as someone who makes his living partly from writing about Apple products, when I get a smartphone (something I’ve successfully resisted so far due to the fact that the nearest 3G or GSM wireless coverage ends some 35 miles short of where I live) I would likely opt for a BlackBerry myself because it has a real analog keyboard.

There’s something that just rubs me (pun intended) the wrong way at a very elemental level about touching display screens. I’m extremely picky about keeping my computer and iPod displays, TV screens, digital camera preview LCDs, etc. clean and free of smears and smudges, and I recoil reflexively from touching them, so touchscreens are massively counterintuitive for me to almost the degree of a phobia. But it goes deeper than that. I had a pocket calculator and organizer for a while that required data and control entry via a screen stylus, and while technically that didn’t involve actually touching the display with my fingers, I still didn’t like it as an input method.

I’m a mechanically-oriented guy, and I’m most comfortable working with input keys that visibly depress when you push on them, and whose movement registers spatially and visually. Touch screens offer no typing feedback, as typo-strewn messages from my iPhone-user friends highlight.

As Virginia Heffernan notes, with her iPhone “To answer the phone, I had to touch the screen. Years of not touching screens – so as not to smudge or scar – made me wary. But I brushed the ‘answer call’ and up came fragments of my mother’s cheerful voice….I hunted for a keypad to call her back, but it was gone…”

Then there was something about the iPhone touchscreen “keyboard” that seemed to induce ineptness. “My right index finger – the only digit precise enough to hit the close-set virtual iPhone keys – seemed an anemic, cerebral thing, designed for making paltry points in debating club. I repeatedly stabbed to the right of my target letter. It was like being 4 again – or being 90. I couldn’t see, it seemed; I couldn’t point; I couldn’t connect.”

I find myself klutzy and error prone with touchscreen input, too.

I’m also of the same school of thought as Ms. Heffernan on what she calls the iPhone’s “know-it-all suggestions.” She observes that “the iPhone seemed to want to be more human, more helpful, jollier than I was! The vaunted Apple user-friendliness was exposed, before my eyes, as bossiness and insincerity,” in a word, “smug.” That assertive busybody dynamic is one of the characteristics I really detest about most Microsoft software, and unfortunately increasingly creeping into Apple’s software applications and even hardware (eg: the ambient light sensitive screen brightness setting on my new MacBook) as well. I like to think for myself.

What worries me most is that some rumor speculation suggests that Apple’s answer to the PC netbook market share challenge could come in the form of an oversized iPod touch rather than an Apple riff on the conventional mini-laptop form factor with a real keyboard and a screen that you keep your grubby paws off of. Personally, I have less than zero interest in even an ultra-portable computer with a touchscreen keyboard, although a tablet that allowed for stylus based handwriting recognition and command input might have some utility — so long as the option remained to hook up a keyboard and mouse when practical.

I’ll be keenly interested to see what materializes, but if it does turn out to be a touchscreen netbook, I’m apprehensive that the touchscreen blight could spread into Apple’s regular notebook space, as the non-swappable battery metastasized from the MacBook Air to the 17″ unibody MacBook Pro.

Don’t go there, Apple — please!

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I’m talking about Troll Touch‘s integrated touchscreen for the Apple 24-inch LED Cinema Display. The 24-inch display, you’ll recall, came to us via the same October Apple event that introduced the new line of unibody aluminum notebooks, and uses the new Mini DisplayPort video connection standard that Apple will be adopting across their entire line of computers. It can also power and act as a USB hub for your Apple notebook.

Troll Touch’s touchscreen system uses USB power to drive the analog resistive touchscreen, which can be used with fingertips, gloves, or a stylus (as opposed to, say, the capacitive touchscreen of the iPhone, which requires fingertip interaction). The screen is an overlay, and does not significantly alter the look of your hardware. If you want the total package, it retails for $2299, but if you have your own 24-inch display already, a mere $1399 will have you fondling your monitor in no time.

Not one to discriminate, Troll Touch also offers similar solutions for your iMac, MacBook (13″), or any of the other existing Apple Cinema displays. Prices are all sort of expensive, but if you’re the type that really needs this sort of thing, then you’re probably willing to pay.

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