14 DAY TRIAL // A report citing industry sources that said Apple was on track to begin testing a new touch-centric iMac has been denied by Barry Wu, VP and spokesperson of Sintek Photronics, the company previously believed to have landed an order with Apple for the touch-screens allegedly targeting new Macs.
Las week, Softpedia reported on a rumor which had Apple gearing up to materialize one of its recently emerged patent applications involving a touch-screen iMac.
This was according to a DigiTimes report citing industry sources, which noted that Sintek Photronics had reportedly sent samples of projected capacitive touch panels over to Cupertino “to be incorporated in the latest iMac all-in-one (AIO) PC.”
The site has now confirmed that, “Barry Wu, VP and spokesperson of Sintek Photronics has denied reports that the company is sampling projected capacitive touch panels for Apple's iMac.”
The source generally takes it upon itself to report on gossip between Apple’s component suppliers, while these reports are often not as accurate as we would wish them to be, given the attractive leaks it regularly publishes.
At the time of our original report, it indicated that Sintek Photronics had struck a deal with Apple to have some capacitive touch panels tested in iMac computers.
Citing the aforementioned “industry sources,” the site noted that Sintek, which is equipped with 5.3G generation production lines, had a good chance of becoming a supplier of the new touch-based Macs, since current capacity for 20-inch and above projected capacitive touch panels was limited, while the technology involved in making these was (and still is) “quite complex.”
The report also explained how projected capacitive touch panels are typically produced, noting that the conventional method is costly, complex, and affects display brightness.
DigiTimes went as far as to include its own forecast regarding the specs of this yet-unconfirmed iMac-touch, saying it is rumored to have “a good vertical and horizontal viewing angle,” (perhaps referring to the IPS technology Apple already employs in various products) as well as a one-glass solution, which should reduce thickness and weight, by integrating the touch sensor and cover glass in one piece.