100% LOADED

In great anticipation of the upcoming Steve Jobs’ keynote speech at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday, June 11th, me and some fellow Apple fans were speculating about all the wonderful gadgets and technologies that will surely be announced this time. The iPhone, of course, is the main topic of the year (so far).

With that, the conversation shifted to a recent post on appleinsider.com discussing a patent filing made by Apple on a hand-held device (iPod, duh!) that displays its output on a front display screen but receives input through a touch-and-force-sensitive backside interface.

The idea is to free the front of the device from any buttons, clickwheel, etc. and fill all of that space with a nice, bright screen. You don’t really look at the buttons when you use them, so why not just put them on the back? This by the way, is what I think is one of the major design shortcomings of the Microsoft Zune (in my opinion). I like what they did the case, the screen is nice, the interface is good (I guess)… but the buttons on the front are ugly and they make less sens once you turn the darn thing sideways.

Anyway, back to the patent…

Such a device, while super-cool, would probably be expensive and not happening any time this year. Some other cloudy details in the filing mention some elaborate interface tricks that would again delay such a device until that kind of software gets developed.

Then it hits me! What if they use hardware that exists today to pull-off the same tricks?

And so, here is my vision ladies and gentlemen… the widePod

Yes. This is what we all need right now. A big, non-touch sensitive (a.k.a. cheap) wide screen in the same size and form we all know and love. Apple already has this case… all they need is a new front (easy). And throw-in some coverflow goodness. Why not?

But the magic happens on the back.

Yes! Stick a regular clickwheel back there and we are done! The thing is already touch sensitive, and all Apple would need to do is rearrange the guts of the thing and cut a nice round hole in the back.

I would buy it today!!

Would you?

The iPhone is great, but it does have its limitations. I, for example, could not fit all my music in 4 or even 8 gigs of storage that doesn’t even take into account the browser, OS and other stuff that’s already going to be in there. I don’t have $500, $600, much less $700 for a new device. I already have a 3G iPod, two iPod Videos, and a Shuffle (yes, I have a problem). But mostly, I’m stuck with my current cellphone deal where the penalty to drop them and switch to AT&T would add a good $200 bucks to the mix.

So, what do you say Apple engineers? Can you make something like this happen while we wait for a pimped-out ubber-iPod with mind-control, HD video, corkscrew, Wi-Fi and bluetooth?

Let’s hope something like this is this year’s “One more thing….”

Apple, iPhone, Shuffle and iPod are trademarks of Apple Inc. Zune is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Please don’t sue the crap out of me.