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Those of you who are convinced an Apple tablet with gestures (or even just some implementation of a touch pad) is on its way should get a head start and start learning the gestures- there are only thirty-eight! As soon as you buy the Apple tablet you can impress everyone with your mastering of the “exit application” gesture- it’s easy and ‘involves a touch with clockwise rotation of spread thumb and three fingers on the track pad device.’
All this looks astonishing familiar- a lot like Finger Works gestures, even the representations of the gestures look similar. Although rumours abound about Apple secretly buying Fingerworks the inventors don’t seem to ex-FingerWorks (but I then again I can’t find any real information on them except previous Apple patentee Hotelling). Interestingly, these patents are handled by the same patent attorneys who handle the FingerWorks patents (probably just a coincidence).
All this complicated gestureing makes one hanker for a simpler time when gestures just involved a raised finger when someone cut you off at the traffic lights if Apple had its way that would be changed to a “a gesture with counter-clockwise rotation of the thumb and three fingers”.
What does this mean? Either, Apple has too much time on its hands or there is some touchpad in the works (whether in a tablet, MacBook or external device).
Inventors: Benjamin Lyon, Stephanie Cinereski, Chad Bronstein and Steven Hotelling (not all on all patent applications)
Click on the links to see the Trackpad gestures as described in the patent application.
