My kingdom for a Jog Dial

[Jason Dunn]

I've always been a big fan of the Jog Dial found on Sony PDAs - it has a very tactile feeling that I find easy to use, and allows for a greater level of control. I always wondered why I hadn't seen any Pocket PC OEM offering a similar solution, and now I know why.<br /><br />When I was at CeBit, I talked to someone with Fujitsu-Siemens who had worked on the LOOX project. He was also a big fan of the Sony Jog Dial, and he said they were interested in using it, until they discovered how expensive it was for them to license the patented technology from Sony. My hunch is that Sony has priced the licensing out of reach for every OEM, thus ensuring that only Sony devices will have that technology. <br /><br />I don't know about you, but I find that very frustrating. The Jog Dial is a simple usability enhancement that would make all PDAs easier to use, but Sony has determined to keep it for themselves. Are there any non-Sony PDAs out there using the Jog Dial? I'd love to be proven wrong.

[torring]

A regular Logitech mouse has something akin to a jog-dial, why not use that technology?

[Foo Fighter]

A regular Logitech mouse has something akin to a jog-dial, why not use that technology?


Are you talking about the scroll wheel? Those require too much internal space to ever fit into a PDA. That's what makes Sony's Jogdial technology so innovative.

[Jason Dunn]

A regular Logitech mouse has something akin to a jog-dial, why not use that technology?


My hunch is that Sony has a patent for technology like that on a PDA...

[GeneDoc]

My Casio E105 has a great jog dial. Who says it has to come from Sony?

[Jason Dunn]

My Casio E105 has a great jog dial. Who says it has to come from Sony?


The Sony Jog Dials rotate all the way through, with a nice tactile click - no Pocket PC on the market, including the Casio, has that. The Casio has a nicer solution than the up/down buttons on my HP 565, but I really love the Sony solution...hence the post. :-)

[Foo Fighter]

My Casio E105 has a great jog dial. Who says it has to come from Sony?


The jogdial on your Casio is not full travel. It just slides up and down.

[Foo Fighter]

Damn Dunn bumped right into me! :lol:

[priceless]

But doesn't the RIM blackberry use a jog wheel / scroll wheel in their devices?

I've got the BB but no Sony so I'm not sure if I'm comparing apples to oranges here, but the RIM certainly has a scroll wheel with a nice click to it, much like my wheel mouse.

Morgan

[GeneDoc]

Ok, it doesn't go all the way around, but I still think it is a great solution for single-hand reading. Too bad my iPaq doesn't anything like it.

[[Cruzer]]

priceless beat me to it.. but the Blackberry does use a jog wheel. does almost the same thing that sony does. you have to use it in order to get to certain menu's. So how does the blackberry get to use such an option. Does Compaq license it from sony??? I doubt it.

RC

[Jason Dunn]

]
priceless beat me to it.. but the Blackberry does use a jog wheel. does almost the same thing that sony does. you have to use it in order to get to certain menu's. So how does the blackberry get to use such an option. Does Compaq license it from sony??? I doubt it.


Good question. I'd love to know if they're licensing it!

[AZMark]

Compaq also had a not full travel jog dial on there Aero PPC. Maybe they are just using their own technology and saying that Sony stole it from them!

[bones]

[Cruzer] wrote:

priceless beat me to it.. but the Blackberry does use a jog wheel. does almost the same thing that sony does. you have to use it in order to get to certain menu's. So how does the blackberry get to use such an option. Does Compaq license it from sony??? I doubt it.



Good question. I'd love to know if they're licensing it!

- I have a good contact in the engineering dept. at Research in Motion in Canada - I'll see if I can find out from him.

[hrianto]

Handera 330 Palm device has jog wheel which act as jog dial as well.

[DrtyBlvd]

I agree it's 'tactile', but don't you find it frustrating? I ALWAYS overshoot what I'm after - I actually prefer the ability to choose how many movements I want, or alternatively let it scroll then release - and the one thing I really really like, and use an awful lot, is when you 'scroll' in contacts - the initial letter appearing?

If it was a Sony Jogdial instead of the type I have (Casio E125), it would take three thumb movements to get to the area of the letter wanted and then the fine tuning to pick the specific one? (I'm guessing here but you get the idea!)

Call me lazy / easily frustrated etc., but I had one of the CMDZ5's, and it drove me up the wall. I like what we have, and I LOVE Sony - but I don't love the jogdial.

This reminds me of a rumour I heard though regarding Ericsson and Motorola - didn't Motorola have the patent on the 'Active Flip'? Ericsson had two or three models with flips that you had to open, then select to answer the call.... I assume the same reason - yet they now have active flip...?

I was looking at one of the new Vaio's yesterday - and it has the jogdial on the middle in fromt of the touch pad - and my first thought on trying it was Why? Akin to that, I have a Compaq Evo that has both a 'nipple' AND a touch pad - What on earth for?

[wangsanegara]

It is true that Motorola has the patent for the Active Flip, and even the Vibrate Mode on most of the Cellular Phone. Not more than 7 years ago, only Motorola has the Vibrate Mode on the phone. However, I think after several years "a patent" can be expired (17 years if I'm not mistaken), so any manufacturer can use the technology.

I think that's the case with Active Flip and Vibrate Mode. However, about the Jog Dial, Sony might still hold the patent license...

A.W

[Down8]

I was looking at one of the new Vaio's yesterday - and it has the jogdial on the middle in fromt of the touch pad - and my first thought on trying it was Why? Akin to that, I have a Compaq Evo that has both a 'nipple' AND a touch pad - What on earth for?
My roommate's new Dell has the pointing stick and the touchpad as well. I think they have done this to be flexible ot the market. I hate touchpads, and he hates the pointing stick, but neither of us is excluded form buying a Dell. Before he got his new laptop, I thought only IBM still used the pointing stick.

ON TOPIC: I have used a friend's Qualcomm phone, which did license the JogDial technology from Sony, and found it no more appealing than the limited motion jog dial of my Jornada 548. I guess it's just another preference, like the touchpad.

-bZj