Apple Patents Reveal New Gestures

PatentlyApple has uncovered a slew of new Apple multi-touch related patents published by the US Patent and Trademark Office. The company is focusing its efforts on simplifying multi-touch gestures in order to make them feel more natural.

Apple’s patent introduces mid-drag gestures, microgestures within gestures, and other gesture modification motions. Apple states that the use of mid-drag gestures reduces the cognitive burden on a user, thereby creating a more efficient human-machine interface. Apparently, the mid-drag gestures allows for faster and more efficient use of user interfaces, thereby conserving power and increasing battery life. Furthermore, Apple has introduced one finger gestures, as seen in the figure below.

A new series of patent applications that have surfaced at the US Patent and Trademark Office recently, clearly indicate that Apple is working on new ways to simplify their multi-touch gesturing on both iOS devices and Mac's via multi-touch and/or Magic Trackpads. One of Apple's key patents within this group of nine, introduces us to some newly contemplated methods of gesturing. The methods include the use of mid-drag gestures, microgestures within gestures, and other gesture modification motions to modify and/or alter user interface behavior. One of the gesture modification motions already reviewed to date relates to Apple's use of Spaceson iOS devices. In the big picture, Apple states that their newly proposed methods and interfaces will reduce the cognitive burden on a user while saving battery life.

Hopefully these gestures are being integrated into iOS 5 and we might get a glimpse of them at WWDC. Interestingly enough, Apple did introduce new multi-tasking gestures in the 4.3beta, but it never made the cut for public release.


Read More [via 9to5mac]