When will tablets have scroll controls on the back of the device?
Apple unveiled it's latest and greatest iPads this week and while impressive (especially the thickness, the Ultra Retina XDR display, a fourth Apple Pencil with increased functionality and the new M4 chip), I'm surprised they haven't yet found a way to put an interactive touchpad on the back of the device. This could be used for scrolling through documents and webpages, perhaps doing even more if it had click functionality. A backside trackpad would allow a user to hold the device in landscape or portrait mode, using their pointer finger on the back of the device to scroll up and down. No more need to take your thumb away from holding your very expensive device to scroll.
I remember hearing about this as a wish list piece of functionality many years ago. It's hardly the type of thing that consumers would demand, but I think it would increase user's time spent using a tablet and could become the default method of scrolling. It'd definitely help set Apple's tablets apart from Samsung and Amazon's offerings.
Considering some of the configuration options for the new models exceed $3000, you'd think the hardware itself would receive a major upgrade such as backside controls. Sure the OLED screen option is nice (it's actually dual OLED if you can wrap your head around that), and I hear the nano-texture screen has to be seen to be believed, but it seems most Apple folks expected more innovation from the new product line, especially considering the ever-growing cost and that all past generations of the Apple Pencil and Magic Keyboard don't work with the newest Pro models.