Apple has just filed a new patent application for the adding of physical controls (like buttons or sliders etc) to the touch sensitive surfaces of electronic devices. Net pundits such as hrmpf.com are calling a "blank iPod/phone/MacBook"

Apple seems to propose that you take a ‘blank’ iPod and add a wheel for a standard iPod, add a keypad to make it a phone - add a joystick to make it a game machine. The overlays are identified by the computer/device and it reacts accordingly.

Source report here

I'm not sure I'd go for something like this. Maybe they're just trying to patent a new style of control scheme that they're thinking about to make sure that if they do go with it, nobody else pantents it first.

Apple has patented lots of things in the past that are never heard from again, I wouldn't read too much into it.

Maybe their just trying to annoy us - as soon as Apple makes the slightest move the whole internet community is onto them...

Thanks for fixing my messy post Disko, still getting the hang of the new system...

I think it looks really dodgy myself, but you never know exactly how it will flesh out.
I bet the original ipod patents looked dodge as well...

I think it would be a bit of a pain carrying around different interfaces for an ipod. You'd end up losing some of them. A laptop in a bag would be less of a problem, but still not real user friendly. Why not just have a set of keys that swaps an image of different interfaces on a touch sensitive screen? Like an earlier patent had?