instead of creating a full-fledged touch-capable Mac, I devised a touch input device that would be wirelessly paired to any Mac on your local network. the most ideal of situations would be to pair it with my redesigned version of the Mac mini, which doesn't come packaged with peripherals. instead of buying a Bluetooth keyboard and Mighty Mouse, you could pick up a TouchPad.

like a giant iPod touch, the TouchPad supports multi-touch, an on-screen keyboard, and some streamlined OSX interface adjustments optimized for media, document processing, web browsing, and instant messaging. there's an iSight built in for iChat and Photo Booth that allows you to touch the screen to manipulate photos.

the screen shown in the image is the secure pairing mode. this peripheral-pairing process has also been simplified. whenever the Mac mini is powered on, it searches for a nearby powered up TouchPad. the Pad automatically boots to the pairing screen on which you'll select what flavor Mac you wish to pair with. once selected, you'll be prompted for a unique passcode. each new Mac will ship with their own passcode printed in the product documentation. the TouchPad will alert you to the presence of an available Mac in your flavor and, once the passcode is entered, will fully interface with it.

July 28th, 2008