All Articles Tagged multi-touch

We know the score. Apple now holds a veritable smorgasbord of multi-touch patents, some dating way back before the iPhone, and some coming from their 2005 acquisition of a company called Fingerworks, and the innovative talents of Wayne Westerman and John Elias. But from whence did they draw their inspiration? MacRumors pulls the relevant quote from a University of Delware article:

“I had an ergonomic problem and I paired it with a motivation,” Westerman said of the early inspiration. “I’d always felt that playing the piano was so much more graceful and expressive than using a computer keyboard, and I thought how great it would be if I pulled some of that expression from the piano to the computer experience.”

Having suffered plenty of joint/wrist injuries, I know from personal experience how difficult it can be to type with traditional, hard smartphone keyboards. I abandoned my old Treo 680 when it was too physically painful to push in the tiny keys anymore. The iPhone, however, is nothing but a pleasure, so the above comments truly resonate with me.

It’s also interesting to note that history aside, Apple is also looking towards the future, with job listings for multi-touch ninja “gesture algorithm” wizards.

So anyone else going to jump on the piano and try to figure out what iPhone 3.0 might hold for us?

We’ve heard whispers relating to this one for a while, but now VentureBeat (via MacRumors) is putting text-to-screen about it:

Apple, which of course makes the signature multi-touch mobile device, the iPhone, apparently asked Google not to implement it, and Google agreed, an Android team member tells us.

Apparently, Google didn’t want to risk their relationship with Apple or the iPhone. Google’s CEO is on Apple’s board, and Google has been releasing iPhone initiative after iPhone initiative these days.

Same Android team members is said to pleased at how this has turned out, given the recent legal noise around the Palm Pre, which decidedly does use multi-touch in almost identical — perhaps infringing-ly identical — manner to the iPhone. Though many behind the Palm Pre, like former iPod czar Jon Rubinstein came from Apple, their relationship is not said to still be as strong.

Check out the full article for more.

So, should Google have agreed to Apple’s request to remove multi-touch from the Android? Should Palm? We still don’t know the strength of Apple’s multi-touch patent portfolio, or portfolio’s lined up against it in defense, but if the Pre suddenly ships without the functionality shown in the CES Keynote, will it be a deal breaker for anyone?

We already knew that Apple’s next computer operating system, OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard (estimated for delivery mid-2009) was leveraging some of the amazing work done by the iPhone team, including the highly optimized QuickTime X. Now Apple Insider brings word that things like CoreLocation and more Multi-Touch might be making their way back to the big desktop brother as well:

CoreLocation will utilize a Mac’s existing networking hardware to triangulate the system’s location in a manner similar to the way the original iPhone was able to use the technology to emulate a true global positioning signal. [...] Snow Leopard will also gain access to a new set of Cocoa-based programing interfaces for leveraging the multi-touch features of the latest MacBooks and MacBook Pros within their applications.

The synergy between Apple’s desktop and mobile OS X development really seems to not only be benefitting both platforms, and optimizing R&D’s bottom-line, but bouncing off each other in iterative splendor. Hopefully iPhone OS 3.0 can take a little back as well — I’m looking at you universal spotlight search!

As we mentioned briefly during TiPb’s live coverage of Apple’s Q1 conference call yesterday, and our new sibling site, PreCentral.net elaborated on, Apple’s Chief Operating Officer, Tim Cook, might have made a shot across Palm’s bow when it comes to the Pre and Apple’s multi-touch patents (text via Macworld):

We like competition, as long as they don’t rip off our [intellectual property], and if they do, we’re going to go after anyone who does. [...] Don’t want to talk about any specific company, just making a general statement. We are ready to suit up and go against anyone. However, we will not stand for having our IP ripped off and will use whatever weapons we have at our disposal.

Recent capacitive touch devices like the Google Android and the BlackBerry Storm have steered very clear of anything even remotely resembling the iPhone’s behaviors, but the Palm Pre duplicates many almost exactly (rubber banding, pinching, panel sliding, etc). Then again, Palm hired Rubinstein and many other Apple employees to round out the Pre team, didn’t they?

When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone at Macworld 2007, one of his big bullet points was “and boy have we patented it”, so I guess now we can all sit back and see if we’ve got a fight on our hands. Will Apple go after Palm, and does Palm have any patents in their own portfolio to fight back with? (Because they sure don’t have Apple’s multi-billion dollar war chest behind them).

And yes, we know Jeff Han showed off many “Minority Report” style multi-touch behaviors long before the iPhone.

UPDATED: Apple filed for their own patents starting back in 2004, before Han, and also acquired a large amount of patents when they bought Fingerworks in 2005 (via Engadget comments).

MacRumors brings word of yet more Apple patents passing through the system, this time focusing on multi-touch gestures. How can you patent a gesture? Don’t get us started. The USPO has raised the bar on ludicrous so high a giant could now safely run under it. The particulars of this one is interesting to anyone interested in the iPhone interface, however:

For example, erasing and basic punctuation insertion, directional swipes (also referred to herein as “swipe gestures”) over the alphabetic keys can be used as an alternative to striking certain keys. Because the Space and Backspace keys are quite frequently used, they are logical candidates for the rightward and leftward swipes, respectively. Leftward and rightward swipes intuitively match the cursor travel caused by these symbols. Following this cursor movement analogy, the Enter/Return may be invoked by a downward swipe, and a Shift/Caps may be invoked by an upward swipe. Alternatively, as the Enter and Shift functions may be less frequently invoked, these may be substituted for other functions as well. One alternative mapping for the upward swipe, for example, could be to activate an alternative numeric and punctuation keypad or a particular punctuation symbol like an apostrophe or period.

Our question? Where’s the cut/copy paste gesture already?!

Apple has had more success than anyone marketing multi-touch as of late — we give you, the iPhone. But how far can even Apple push this technology? Right to the line? Past the line? Apple Insider sheds light on a new patent application that might just be way over the line:

portable multi-touch skins that can be wrapped around three-dimensional objects such as an iPod or steering wheel to provide addition GUI interfaces for those objects that can be configured via the touch skins themselves.

Too. Many. Jokes. Flooding. Blogsphere.

Apple envisions people using them to control music on steering wheels, or on tennis rackets for instruction. We’ll let you entertain yourselves with your own predictions, b’okay?

When Steve Jobs uttered the statement that “Now you can make a pretty good argument that the [iPod Touch/iPhone] is the best portable device for playing games on”, did you nod your head in unison? I have my money on you saying no—the iPhone is a great device, to be sure, but a gaming device? Leave that to Nintendo you probably thought.

Why? Because the Nintendo DS has sold close to 80 million units since its inception. The numbers speak for themselves, the Nintendo DS is the king of portable gaming. So what would it take for the iPhone to knock the DS off of its throne? Well, that’s what we are here to tell you.

Read on to see how the iPhone can take on the Nintendo DS!

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Patent-mania running wild from Apple is nothing new, though these recent filings do seem a tad focused on enabling new form factors, don’t they? To go along with the iFlip and iPhone Nano, and the iSlider, comes a little something that just might allow for an iStylus:

Another interesting possibility raised is the use of both capacitance (finger tip) and resistance (fingernail) to provide secondary functionality in future touch screens. [...] Apple suggests the addition of pressure sensitivity to provide additional functionality. For example, touching an item in a list with your fingertip would select it, while pressing it with your fingernail (or otherwise shielded finger or stylus) could bring up a pop-up menu (see picture above).

It’s suggested that the patent could make things like text selection and — wait for it — cut and paste much easier to multi-touch, with the resistance input being akin to a right-button action on a mouse. Of course, we all know how much Steve Jobs loves buttons, never mind his audible YUCK! at the concept of a stylus.

However, resistance touch could be a blessing to those with long nails, who have complained that they have trouble getting the fleshy part of their finger to properly make contact with the current capacitance sensors. No matter how outdated (–cough–Treo 600–cough–) the technology is.

But never mind what I think, are you hankering to get your iStylus on? And if so, why so?

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