The Register®

Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/10/tiny_apple_display/

Miniature Apple display spotted in the wild

9cm2 of LCD goodness

By Rik Myslewski in San Francisco

Posted in Media, 10th July 2010 04:11 GMT

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Today's wild-ass rumor: Apple is planning to place a 9cm2 LCD display into, well, nobody knows.

A blog post on the Chinese-language fanboi site Apple.pro entitled "iWatch U !!! ? [1]" is the source of this speculation-inducing tidbit — and we thank MacRumors [2] for starting us off on our hunt to track down the original poster. (If Chinese isn't your strong suit, try the ever-amusing Google translation [3] service.)

Tiny LCD display

The minuscule mystery display...

Tiny LCD display

...with Apple's name on it

Apple.pro makes no direct mention of the diminutive display being a touch screen other than to suggest it might be used in an "iPod Touch nano" of "iPod Touch shuffle".

Using the little fellow in a redesigned nano — at least as a substitute for the current 5.6cm (diagonal), 240-by-376-pixel display — is unlikely, seeing as how that's where the nano displays its minimalist VGA video. But as an additional context-aware touchscreen interface? Hmm... Maybe.

The far-east fanbois also suggest that it might be used in an upgraded iPod shuffle, which is currently sans any display whatsoever — unless you count the fact that the shuffle talks to you as being a display equivalent. They also playfully suggest — as the post's title implies — that the Lilliputian LCD might be used in an "iWatch".

May we join in the speculation? Thank you. How about installing it in an upgraded keyboard, where it could be a context-aware or user-definable hotkey for launching apps, controlling media, displaying system stats, flicking through slideshows of the kids, or the like — sort of like a not-butt-ugly Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard [4].

Or maybe it could sit on the outside of a MacBook lid, where — when the MacBook is closed — it could display various system parameters, a clock, battery condition, or even email subject lines as messages arrive.

What's your bright idea for how this component might be used? ®

Bootnote

When introducing the tiny display, Apple.pro, according to Google Translate, cryptically wrote: "It is coming from deep inside the throat (code A08)." Hoping that code would give us a clue as to the identity of the website's sources, we went to Google, where we discovered that "code A08" means either an anatomical therapeutic chemical designation relating to antiobesity preparations [5] (excluding diet products), a silver metallic BMW paint color [6], or an error code [7] indicating a short or open cicuit in the auxiliary wash motor's triode for alternating current in an Indesit [8] dishwasher. Not helpful.