Newly unearthed Apple patent raises hopes for fabled iTablet

In April, Apple filed an updated 52-page application for a patent on an extensive multi-touch interface for a full Mac OS X-based system. The illustrations that accompany the application look like the long-heralded but non-existent "iTablet."
The filing includes descriptions of various interfaces, including a full-size onscreen keyboard that can use modifier keys, like shift or control. "Although only two keys are described, it should be noted that two keys is not a limitation and that more than two keys may be actuated simultaneously to produce one or more control signals," reads to the application. So multiple modifiers can be used, such as shift-opt-ctrl-3, used to capture the screen to the pasteboard. Another interface element is a virtual iPod scroll wheel that can be accessed on demand. Like the iPod's scroll wheel, it can be used as a virtual jog dial and be tied to a number of possible adjustments. Other multi-touch gestures we have seen in the iPhone UI and carried over to the MacBook Air trackpad, such as scrolling, zooming, and rotation, are also described in the patent application.

Perhaps most importantly, however, the application details methods to interact with multiple windows, instead of the single window method used for the iPhone. There are gestures that enable windows to be shuffled around and resized. Also included in the description is a method to interact with interface widgets that may be too small, by temporarily enlarging them for accurate touch control.

The latest patent filing details methods for interacting
with multiple windows using multitouch input

The recent application follows on numerous patent applications from Apple recently, giving further evidence that Apple has some plans to integrate multi-touch interfaces in future Macs. Whether or not this means we will be seeing a Mac tablet from Apple anytime soon, though, is still a mystery. There is a small, but vocal, contingency hoping for such a product. But based on comments from Axiotron CEO Andreas Haas, a former Apple product manager, it likely won't come from Apple until it sees a much larger market opportunity. "The iTablet is not gonna come," Haas told Ars in January. "We are shipping [ModBooks] in the hundreds of thousands, and Apple ships in the millions." Until Apple thinks it can move that many tablets, it still remains a pipe dream.