Apple iPad Patent Brings Bezel Touch Control Huge iPad Bezel to be Touch-Friendly; Actually Useful

You know how it is with patents, don t you? Most of them are neat
published documents that portray some very interesting wizardry related
to gadgets and not only. But not all of them actually get implemented.
In fact we ve seen so far many Apple patents which aren t all employed
in our current devices that we re not surprised to see Cupertino s
newest patent regarding iPad bezel touch-controls come to life.
The patent shows us how the bezel of the iPad could be used to actually
control the device. The patent doesn t refer strictly to the iPad touch
and we all know that such a feature is not currently employed by Apple s
latest creation. But the iPad has a pretty large bezel, far larger than
the iPhone s and definitely not very useful.
Should Apple add capacitive touch sensors to it in the near future then
the bezel could actually be used in order to navigate easier through the
menus of different applications of the device in question, in this case,
the iPad.
Apple s new patent also describes how the device will respond to
different touches. The bezel happens to be used for handling the iPad so
the software would recognize whether we want to push virtual buttons or
we re simply holding the device in position.
The touch-sensitive areas of the bezel will be paired with on-screen
labels which means that the bezel will not have specific controls
situated on the iPad s sides. Furthermore the software will recognize
the change of screen position when rotated and it will automatically
rotate those labels on the screen in order to be properly displayed on
the new screen orientation.
Various shortcuts could also be setup and users will be able to call
some specific apps or settings by simply tapping the area around a
certain corner of the device.
All this sounds pretty �phenomenal � but we might not see such iPad
controls anytime soon. In fact we might have to wait until iPad 2.0 to
enjoy a touch-friendly bezel. On the other hand this patent might prove
that the iPhone 4G might indeed come with some kind of touch-friendly
case, as previously rumored, although it s too early to speculate on
that matter.