Apple swipes Xmas iPhone patent

By Davey Winder
Saturday, 27 December 2008 22:58

Market

What were you doing on December 25th? Eating far too much, getting drunk perhaps, opening presents and watching old movies on the telly maybe? If your name was Apple, however, you would be filing patents of course.

We are no strangers to patent stories here at iTWire, from the likes of Microsoft getting a patent for Page Up Page Down to Amazon with the patented method for giving product reviewers a virtual badge.

So, despite the filing falling on the most unusual of days (only April 1st could be a stranger day for such things) we have to admit that this particular patent application sounds pretty sensible.

Entitled "Swipe gestures for touch screen keyboards' the application was authored by none other than the former founder of Fingerworks, Wayne Westerman. It is interesting as it could mean an updated iPhone keyboard is on the cards.

Think of replacing a 'return' tap with a two fingered downward swipe, or a 'delete' tap with a left directional two fingered swipe for example.

The abstract reveals "Systems, methods, and devices for interpreting manual swipe gestures as input in connection with touch-sensitive user interfaces that include virtual keyboards" which allow for "a user entering text using the virtual keyboard to perform certain functions using swipes across the key area rather than tapping particular keys."

Although the obvious implementation would be the iPhone/iTouch, let's not forget the latest MacBook incarnations or even the rumoured Mac Netbook. Indeed, the patent application abstract says that the techniques could be used "with a variety of devices" including desktop, tablet and notebook computers.

Personally, the more the merrier I say. I love the idea of using multi-touch swipes in a logical fashion to increase productivity with ease of functionality. So while a single swipe to the left could delete a letter, a two fingered wipe might delete the word and a three fingered swipe the entire line.

Of course, software such as the Opera web browser has had a mouse gesture interface for some time and it has not exactly changed the world. So it remains to be seen if Apple can do things differently. I have a funny feeling the answer might just be a bloody big you betcha!