Multi-touch Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Daily Update for July 25, 2012

by Steven Sande (Jul 25th, 2012)

It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player ...

Video shows another way Apple could implement text editing on iPad

by Kelly Hodgkins (May 4th, 2012)

As noticed by iDownloadBlog, YouTube user danielchasehooper has come up with an idea that would simplify text editing on the iPad by making it even easier to select text. Instead of tap, hold and zoom to select text, you could use a finger swipe to move the cursor and hold shift to select the ...

Apple granted 22 patents including trackpads, iPhone circuit boards and more

by Chris Rawson (Jan 18th, 2012)

Every once in a while Apple gets granted a big chunk of patents all at once, and this is one of those times. In addition to an Apple TV patent we've described in its own post, Apple's been granted over 20 other patents ranging from advanced trackpads to iPhone circuit board designs and ...

iOS 5 features: New Multi-Touch gestures for iPad 2

by Chris Rawson (Oct 12th, 2011)

In developer betas of iOS 4.3, Apple introduced new four- and five-finger multitasking gestures for the iPad. Those gestures didn't make it to the public release of iOS 4.3 for some reason, which was unfortunate because a lot of beta testers found them extremely useful. Fortunately, these new ...

Apple can't get "multi-touch" trademark

by Michael Grothaus (Sep 26th, 2011)

Apple has been denied a trademark for the term "multi-touch," reports MacRumors. Apple originally applied for the trademark on January 9, 2007, just one day before the first iPhone was introduced. The United States Patent and Trademark Office denied the initial trademark application, but per ...

Multi-Touch finger paintings merge art with tech

by Chris Rawson (Sep 16th, 2011)

Anybody can fingerpaint -- it's pretty much a standard part of kindergarten curriculum -- but artist Evan Roth took it a step farther with his Multi-Touch finger paintings. (Heads-up: some salty language on his site). By putting tracing paper over his iPod touch, paint on his fingers, and ...

Baffling inconsistencies in OS X Lion Multi-Touch

by Chris Rawson (Aug 2nd, 2011)

OS X Lion's new Multi-Touch gestures have switched things up more than any previous version of OS X, and they're brought a lot of confusion with them. While "natural" scrolling is the most obvious change and the one that takes the most getting used to (unless you disable it), other ...

VMware brings virtual machines to iPad

by Dana Franklin (Mar 9th, 2011)

Earlier today, VMware, Inc. announced the availability of VMware View Client for iPad on Apple's App Store. The free app enables enterprise and government users to securely access their virtual desktops, applications and data from anywhere with wireless internet access. Unlike VNC clients ...

iPad multi-touch gestures will be withheld from iOS 4.3

by Dave Caolo (Jan 20th, 2011)

There's bad news for those anticipating multi-touch gestures in iOS 4.3. It seems that the feature won't be a part of the public release. Engadget and others have confirmed that the feature is just a developer preview, so no ninja-level pinching and swiping for us normals. That's unfortunate, as ...

Will the iPad and iPhone home buttons go away? Probably not

by Chris Rawson (Jan 13th, 2011)

As soon as I heard of the new iPad multi-touch gestures in the iOS 4.3 beta, which allow you to reach the home screen with a four- or five-finger gesture, I thought, "Well, that's it for the home button." Boy Genius Report also says it's heard from a source within Apple that the company is testing ...

Patents for multi-touch, iPad dock and MacBook Air awarded to Apple

by Steven Sande (Dec 8th, 2010)

Apple has been awarded several patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, one of which could be valuable ammunition in the flood of intellectual property lawsuits that has been swirling around the company lately. PatentlyApple is reporting that Apple now holds the patents for one of the ...

Apple patent teases convertible laptop / tablet

by David Quilty (Nov 30th, 2010)

Have you seen any of those rumors over the years about Apple making a tablet/laptop combo for the masses? Well, it seems that at least part of the rumor has gone and gotten itself a patent. Calling it a "convertible MacBook-to-iPad-like device," Patently Apple reports that the patent could be for ...

Patent Wars, Episode V: Apple Strikes Back

by Chris Rawson (Oct 31st, 2010)

It is a dark time for the smartphone market. Although the Blackberry has been destroyed, patent suits have driven handset makers from their hidden laboratories and pursued them across the galaxy. Evading the dreaded Motorola patent suits, a pair of new lawsuits led by six Apple Multi-Touch and OS ...

Apple awarded three major multi-touch patents

by Chris Rawson (Oct 13th, 2010)

Have you noticed that since mid-2007, a lot of other phone manufacturers have come out with multi-touch displays that are all but identical to those on the iPhone? I certainly noticed, and it made me wonder if Steve Jobs's January 2007 claim regarding multi-touch, "Boy have we patented it," was ...

Inertial scrolling should be possible on all multi-touch trackpads

by Chris Rawson (Apr 24th, 2010)

A new feature called "inertial scrolling" has been introduced in the latest MacBook Pros. This feature changes the way that scrolling functions in OS X, making it behave more like the iPhone. Traditionally, when you use two-finger scrolling in OS X, scrolling stops dead as soon as your fingers stop ...