Apple in June filed for a patent covering a handheld device that contains a touch-sensitive user interface on its bezel, rather than on its screen. AppleInsider published several images from the filing, showing how the LCD would display the functionality along its edges, with the user able to access those features by touching those spots.

While the filing doesn't specifically mention the iPod, the images clearly show a user accessing music and photos on a device whose screen takes up nearly its entire face. Apple's filing allows for the device to be held horizontally or vertically, with different functions available on its bezel depending on what the user has accessed.

One of the images published by AppleInsider

Apple has long been rumored to be working on a so-called "true video iPod" that would have a large widescreen LCD, but the company has obviously had to deal with how to implement a bigger screen without substantially increasing the device's size. Apple previously patented touch-screen functionality that clearly showed the user accessing the functions made available by the click wheel found on current iPods, but it's likely the company ran into problems with the smudges left behind after the user finds the content they want, especially if it's video.

Placing touch-based functions on the device's bezel seems like a way to get around the smudge factor, but Apple's filing did note that such an ability could result in the user accidentally pressing certain functions while simply holding the device. "Although the top and bottom surfaces would not typically be used to hold the device, these surfaces are not ideal locations for buttons that are often actuated because it would be awkward to reach these buttons when operating the device with one hand," the company wrote in its filing. "Instead, the top surface may be reserved for buttons that have limited action and generic functions that are cross-functional, for example, power and hold switches."

Apple's filing also allows for an orientation sensor in the device, which would relocate or change functions depending on the way the user is holding it. Another sensor could also detect the level of ambient light and adjust the contrast and/or brightness automatically, and yet other could sense motion, which Apple said can "be used to detect motion of the electronic device from a stationary state so that the device can 'wake up' or can show previously hidden visual guides on the display in response to being moved."

Of course, anyone reading the patent filing should take into account the fluid nature of Apple's R&D efforts, the company pointed out. It noted: "Such features, details, and configurations can be used with the various different embodiments, even if such features, details, and configurations were not specifically mentioned in conjunction with a particular embodiment, and that this disclosure contemplates various combinations of the features, details, and configurations disclosed herein. More specifically, the foregoing description of preferred and other embodiments is not intended to limit or restrict the scope or applicability of the inventive concepts conceived of by the Applicants."