The Future of the iPhone?
Let’s face it. The iPhone is a very distracting mobile device. With its interactive touch screen and all of its cool apps, it is really hard to look away, let alone put it down. The worst part is that like most mobile devices, we depend solely on our visual senses to operate it. Clearly, this becomes a problem while driving through rush hour traffic and attempting to text your buddy, who happens to be in the adjacent lane.
Thanks to a couple of PhD students from the University of Glasgow, all of our problems are about to be fixed. They are currently researching and implementing haptic technology into the iPhone that will in turn provide users with a sense of pressing an actual button when operating their touch screens. They hope that this will enable users to get physical feedback from their interface, therefore making it more appropriate to drive while texting or operate in more compromising conditions.That’s right! Multi-taskers rejoice, as your day of glory has arrived. No longer do you have to choose between playing God with old women crossing the street or texting away on your iPhone.
The first prototype in development is the Haptic Keyboard. This mod tries to bring back the physical feel to mobile keyboards when touched or pressed by using a variety of vibrations and gives the user a tactile feedback with every touch of the screen. When you click a key, an event is triggered within the phone that enables the iPhone’s built-in rotational motor. The user then feels a couplet of vibrations that resemble the sensation of pressing and releasing a physical button.
This technology could very well mark the future path of both the iPhone and touchscreen devices as a whole and the best part is, you could be right there every step of the way. To get a copy of this software and install it on your iPhone, simply visit the team’s official website. Don’t forget to bookmark the site while you’re there to make sure you have the most recent future updates and bug fixes.
