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It's not secret that I'm a shameless Mac fanboy. I've been using them in one form or other for close to 2 decades. And right now Apple are going through a transition into something more than just a computer company. The iPod owns the MP3 player scene and the iPhone looks set to take over the phone market as well, especially if the new iPhone Nano rumours (it's a given really) are true. But when a touch screen patent application turns up, complete with virtual turntables, it's time to take a closer look.

Not let's get this out of the way first - Apple are very cloak and dagger when it comes to new gear. Often patents appear from Infinite Loop for gear that never sees the light of day. I don't know if this is to hedge their bets or to create a diversion. But this is the first time we've seen something from the mothership that directly impacts into our scene.

The nuts and bolts of this patent are the manipulation of objects on a touch screen. This is obviously an all encompassing patent to cover all kinds of user interface applications - essentially this appears to be Apple's touch screen patent. As you might expect, there reams of it with many accompanying diagrams. The DJ specific stuff is this:

[0145]FIG. 23 illustrates another embodiment of the invention for manipulating the replay and recording of audio or musical files. As shown in FIG. 23, a music application 830 can display a pair of virtual turntables 842 and 843, on which two musical records 834 and 835 are playing, the records being one of a single or a LP record. The records 834 and 835 can be graphical representations of a digital musical file (e.g., song A and song B) that are being replayed via the music application 830. In other words, the records can be graphical imprints of the musical files as if the musical files were imprinted on physical records.

[0146]Like a pair of physical turntables, stylus 844 and stylus 855 can be graphical icon indications of a playback queue, the position of which can be varied by touching the queue on a touch sensitive display screen and dragging the icon to the desired position on the graphical record. The moving of the stylus would cause a jump in the playback point of the corresponding song, as on a physical turntable.

[0147]Also like a pair of physical turn tables start/stop buttons 838 and 839 can be touched by one or more fingers to toggle the start or stop/pause of the song reproduction. Speed variants bars 840 and 841 can be linearly adjusted to control the playback speed of the songs. Windows 831 and 833 can graphically reproduce the frequency representation of the reproduced songs, while window 832 can display the frequency representation of the actual output of the music application 832, which can be simply one of the songs being reproduced, or a mixed/combination of the songs. Mixing/pan bar 850 can be manipulated to modulate or demodulate the two songs being reproduced.

[0148]During song reproduction, the records 834 and 835 can be manipulated similar to a physical record. For instance, rapid back and forth movement of a record can cause the sound effect of a record "scratching," as disc jockeys often do on physical turn tables.

So are Apple attempting to patent touch screen DJing here? Well reading though the whole patent, it seems like they're going for a blanket approach, covering interface usage, photo manipulation, video playback etc etc. I'm no patent lawyer and certainly don't know any so really I'm stabbling around furiously on the dark. But on the face of it, this may preclude any software vendor from making a turntable-like experience on touch screens. To be honest, I'm not really seeing this as a problem. DJs depend on a rather more precise physical feel than a touch screen can offer when Djing, hence the mountain of controllers on the market. Perhaps Apple are bet-hedging here and trying to give DJ power to the consumer. As De La Soul said - "everybody wants to be a DJ" and all that.

What is interesting - if you take the time to wade through the patent - is this image:



This shows a hand held tablet device rather than just a touch screen. Think big fat iPhone for your lap. Proportionally, you're talking a 6" x 10" device - a keyboardless OLPC really. Having got people to a phone free of keys, are Apple looking to throw away the keyboard for even more people? They threw away the floppy drive when the industry said they were insane.

Just how far reaching this touch screen technology will reach remains to be seen. I feel we'll see specific devices (I'm thinking TouchBook Air) rather than moving iMacs over to a keyboard free experience. But from a DJ perspective, having a touch screen tablet in front of your DJ setup is probably more palatable than a laptop, as it's easier to integrate and more physical than keystrokes. Hitting loop starts, hot cues and effects directly on screen is more direct than remembering key combos. It may well also impact on technologies such as MIDI. If a tablet is sat right above your mixer, running a touch screen Traktor, your MIDI controller and computer are the same thing - bye bye MIDI.

The possible implications are wide and far reaching. I'm not sure entirely touch screen DJing will take over, but touch screen devices have the possibility to become a major part of a DJ's life.

Source: Macnn

Patent: US Patent Office