Apple has reportedly been working on a multi-touch version of iWork for the past couple years, according to a NYTimes article.

Conversations with several former Apple engineers who worked on the long-gestating tablet also suggest that Apple may be asking users to learn a somewhat complex new vocabulary of finger gestures to control it, making use of technology it acquired in the 2007 purchase of a company called FingerWorks.

“The tablet should offer any number of unique multitouch experiences — for example, three fingers down and rotate could mean ‘open an application,’ ” said one former engineer.

These 'complex' new gestures were also reported by a CultofMac source, “I just heard [to] be ready for a steep learning curve regarding the 'new' Apple product about to be released [and its] interface."

Its believed that one of the first applications to use these complex gestures will be iWork. A former Apple designer told the NYTimes that a team at the company had “spent the past couple of years working on a multitouch version of iWork.”

Its possible that this multi-touch version of iWork could ship with the tablet and be used to justify a higher selling price.

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