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milhous · Mar 15, 2005, 09:44 AM

i thought it'd be a cool project to look into once school's done and i get my own place. something like an elo touchscreen monitor that drives a mini or a terminal session to where itunes is located. the panel would be mounted somewhere in your living room and when you have guests over you can go quickly get some tunes going.

there'd be no mouse or keyboard as the pointing device would be your finger and the keyboard can be substituted for a virtual keyboard which can be activated if you want to perform text-based searching in the library. you'd drag your finger to use the scroll widgets as well as tap and hold to drag a song from the library into an ad-hoc playlist.

thoughts?

nath · Mar 15, 2005, 09:50 AM

Originally posted by milhous:
i thought it'd be a cool project to look into once school's done and i get my own place. something like an elo touchscreen monitor that drives a mini or a terminal session to where itunes is located. the panel would be mounted somewhere in your living room and when you have guests over you can go quickly get some tunes going.

there'd be no mouse or keyboard as the pointing device would essentially be your finger and the keyboard can be substituted for a virtual keyboard which can be activated if you want to perform text-based searching in the library. you'd drag your finger to use the scroll widgets as well as tap and hold to drag a song from the library into an ad-hoc playlist.

thoughts?

Apple desperately needs to release something along these lines. I use a Powerbook in my living room controlling the iTunes library on my main desktop, but if it's not there it's a pain getting it out, loading iTunes etc. Plus who wants a �2000 remote control.

I have a hunch they are waiting to get the video end of things fully integrated with their home networking offerings before doing it. There was a reference to something along these lines in patent info that came up on El Reg a while ago.

cjrivera · Mar 15, 2005, 10:01 AM

I'd love to see a "jukebox" interface with touchscreen, so you could setup a Mac with iTunes for parties and have guests "page through" the albums to pick their songs. (Like the CD jukeboxes you find in bars)

Anyone know of a program like this?

turtle777 · Mar 15, 2005, 10:11 AM

I cheap start is getting a BlueTooth PDA and Salling clicker.

You can remotely change playlists, browse albums, artists, change volume etc...

-t

Millennium · Mar 15, 2005, 10:11 AM

What would you use? The only real solution I could think of here would be to take a PalmPilot or something with wireless networking and then set up some kind of client/server thing. Is that what you're looking for?

turtle777 · Mar 15, 2005, 10:12 AM

Originally posted by Millennium:
What would you use? The only real solution I could think of here would be to take a PalmPilot or something with wireless networking and then set up some kind of client/server thing. Is that what you're looking for?

Beat you by seconds

-t

jasonsRX7 · Mar 15, 2005, 10:27 AM

Originally posted by cjrivera:
I'd love to see a "jukebox" interface with touchscreen, so you could setup a Mac with iTunes for parties and have guests "page through" the albums to pick their songs. (Like the CD jukeboxes you find in bars)

Anyone know of a program like this?

These things look pretty slick. About as Apple-like as you're going to find.
Sonos

cla214 · Mar 15, 2005, 11:06 AM

Originally posted by milhous:
i thought it'd be a cool project to look into once school's done and i get my own place. something like an elo touchscreen monitor that drives a mini or a terminal session to where itunes is located. the panel would be mounted somewhere in your living room and when you have guests over you can go quickly get some tunes going.

there'd be no mouse or keyboard as the pointing device would be your finger and the keyboard can be substituted for a virtual keyboard which can be activated if you want to perform text-based searching in the library. you'd drag your finger to use the scroll widgets as well as tap and hold to drag a song from the library into an ad-hoc playlist.

thoughts?

Someone has done something along these lines with a mac mini and a touchpanel... see here: linky

cla214 · 11:56 AM

double post...

mitchell_pgh · Mar 15, 2005, 11:28 AM

This is one place where the people that complain about having a one button mouse quickly become perfectly silent. Because the Mac has one button by default, touch screens are MUCH easier to use with a Mac.

I've looked in to getting one of the touch screens for my car. They look very cool...

milhous · Mar 15, 2005, 11:32 AM

impressive on both counts!

jasonsRX7 · Mar 15, 2005, 11:56 AM

Originally posted by cla214:
Someone has done something along these lines with a mac mini and a touchpanel... see here: linky

That would be kind of cool to have on my desk as a 2nd monitor, to keep iTunes on, and maybe some palettes, calculator, and that kind of stuff. Would it work having a touchpanel as a 2nd display?

cla214 · Mar 15, 2005, 11:58 AM

Originally posted by jasonsRX7:
That would be kind of cool to have on my desk as a 2nd monitor, to keep iTunes on, and maybe some palettes, calculator, and that kind of stuff. Would it work having a touchpanel as a 2nd display?

That does sound cool. Currently I'm using my old 15" flat panel as my itunes/2nd display... but a touch screen would be cool.

milhous · Mar 15, 2005, 01:54 PM

Originally posted by jasonsRX7:
That would be kind of cool to have on my desk as a 2nd monitor, to keep iTunes on, and maybe some palettes, calculator, and that kind of stuff. Would it work having a touchpanel as a 2nd display?

os x would be able to handle multiple pointing devices. that said if you were to use a touchpanel as a palette, once you've selected an option, you'd have to take your mouse and drag it back over to the primary screen and in the direction that you have displays arranged.

it's time for a touchscreen revolution!

jasonsRX7 · Mar 15, 2005, 02:50 PM

Originally posted by milhous:
you'd have to take your mouse and drag it back over to the primary screen

Ah, so the mouse cursor would jump to wherever you tapped with your finger, which makes sense. That would halfway defeat the purpose, but it would still be cool.

MilkmanDan · Mar 15, 2005, 05:17 PM

Sonos is really nice. I wish apple would make a Home Entertainment Center or something. They would capture the market if they made a muisc/TiVo center thing for your living room. Especially if they had an iTunes music store... but for TV shows....

sworthy · Mar 15, 2005, 05:20 PM

If someone has a question about Sonos feel free to ask and check out some pics in this thread: http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=248472

milhous · Mar 16, 2005, 12:56 AM

i was just going to reply and say that the sonos system was overpriced for what it did. but then it got me thinking...

a 15" elo touchcreen would cost $600 and up and to have it run on the 1.25ghz mini would be another 499. so that's already 1099 in a one room solution in addition to other miscellaneous costs such as mounting hardware.

the remote concept is very cool, but then again it would also be cool to have a decent sized touch panel in your living room and not have to mess with a remote control interface.

a reasonably priced touchpanel accessory for the system would be unstoppable.