The

Zune Zune is a discontinued line of digital media products and services marketed by Microsoft from November 2006 until its discontinuation in June 2012. Zune consisted of a line of portable media players, digital media player software for Windows ...

Pad, which is a

squircle A squircle is a shape intermediate between a square and a circle. There are at least two definitions of "squircle" in use, the most common of which is based on the superellipse. The word "squircle" is a portmanteau of the words "square" and "cir ...

, is the primary control

mechanism Mechanism may refer to: * Mechanism (engineering), rigid bodies connected by joints in order to accomplish a desired force and/or motion transmission * Mechanism (biology), explaining how a feature is created * Mechanism (philosophy), a theory tha ...

for

Zune 4, 8, 16 The Zune 4, Zune 8, and Zune 16 are second-generation models of the Zune lineup, they were first announced on October 2, 2007 and released on November 13, 2007 in the United States and June 13, 2008 in Canada. They are flash memory-based players me ...

, 80 and 120. The pad lets users of this device

scroll A scroll (from the Old French ''escroe'' or ''escroue''), also known as a roll, is a roll of papyrus, parchment, or paper containing writing. Structure A scroll is usually partitioned into pages, which are sometimes separate sheets of papyrus ...

through their

song A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetitio ...

list with the use of their

finger A finger is a limb of the body and a type of digit, an organ of manipulation and sensation found in the hands of most of the Tetrapods, so also with humans and other primates. Most land vertebrates have five fingers (Pentadactyly). Chambers 1 ...

, then press the button to select tracks or change the

volume Volume is a measure of occupied three-dimensional space. It is often quantified numerically using SI derived units (such as the cubic metre and litre) or by various imperial or US customary units (such as the gallon, quart, cubic inch). The def ...

. It was designed by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washingt ...

for the release of the second generation Zune.

Description and operation

The

Pad is about 24 mm in diameter and resembles a square like figure. It comprises a

touch-sensitive A touchscreen or touch screen is the assembly of both an input ('touch panel') and output ('display') device. The touch panel is normally layered on the top of an electronic visual display of an information processing system. The display is often ...

button with simulated up, down, left, right and center navigational "button" response. It combines this touch interface with standard 5-way D-pad functionality. The Pad is capable of detecting movements in all directions. The user can press the top, bottom, left, right and center of the pad inward to navigate through lists or select an item or use the touch interface to move up, down, left and right. Selection is always done with a center click. The user can touch and slide to move up or down on the screen. The motion of the select box on the screen is viewport-controlled where moving the finger up moves the view of the content up. This is unlike direct content manipulation interfaces, where moving the finger up moves the content up, equivalent to moving the viewport down the list. The Zune Pad allows the user to coast after flicking the list and to

accelerate In mechanics, acceleration is the rate of change of the velocity of an object with respect to time. Accelerations are vector quantities (in that they have magnitude and direction). The orientation of an object's acceleration is given by the ...

through the list with repeated flicks, unlike direct content manipulation interfaces in which a touch immediately grabs and stops the onscreen content. The user can thus move through a large list at high speed with just the flick gesture. Touching or clicking the Zune Pad will cause the coasting to stop. It also allows the user to slide left and right to move through the menus at the top of the screen. The user can always click to navigate. There is no navigation function which can be performed only with the touch functions — the D-pad functionality is always sufficient.

Function

The Zune Pad is a

capacitive A capacitor is a device that stores electrical energy in an electric field by virtue of accumulating electric charges on two close surfaces insulated from each other. It is a passive electronic component with two terminals. The effect of a c ...

touchpad A touchpad or trackpad is a pointing device featuring a tactile sensor, a specialized surface that can translate the motion and position of a user's fingers to a relative position on the operating system that is made output to the screen. Touchp ...

and therefore detection is dependent upon using a finger. Directional pad functions are

simulate A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or process, whereas the ...

d by determining where the user's finger is when pressing the button. This works well unless the user is wearing

glove A glove is a garment covering the hand. Gloves usually have separate sheaths or openings for each finger and the thumb. If there is an opening but no (or a short) covering sheath for each finger they are called fingerless gloves. Fingerless glo ...

s or anything that the touch surface cannot "read". The user cannot adjust the sensitivity and scroll speed, but can choose to turn it off and use the button as a standard directional pad instead.

External links

Zune.netOfficial Zune Forums
Zune Pointing devices {{hardware-stub

Description and operation

Function

See also

External links