Apple Depicts Advanced Multitouch Control Panel in Mac OS X

In case there were any doubts that Apple was exploring the use ofadvanced multitouch gestures under Mac OS X, a recent Apple patentapplication authored by Wayne Westerman (of Fingerworks) shows mockups of a Mac OS X gesturing control panel with options to configure standard trackpad, basic multitouch, and advanced multitouch settings:

Apple's notebooks already contain what we presume to be "basicmultitouch" with two-finger scroll, rotate, and zoom, but "advancedmultitouch" has not yet been seen in shipping products.

The patent application depicts how one could customize these advancedgestures for Expose and Dashboard, by using four finger swipesup/down/left/right:

File operations, such as Open, New, Save and Close using gestures based on your Thumb and Forefinger:

And even editing operations such as Copy, Cut, Paste, Undo, Select All,Tab, and Cancel using gestures based on your Thumb and Two Fingers:

They also claim to be able to distinguish between various combinationsof fingers, including adjacent and non-adjacent finger presses. Inparticular, they point out that the pinky finger when applied sidewaysto the trackpad (as in the bottom of a fist) generates a unique patternand could be used for its own customizable functionality: such asadjusting volume or putting the computer to sleep.

Over the past few years, numerous multitouch patent applications havebeen revealed Apple's ongoing work on gesture computing. Apple has beenmaking small and steady steps at introducing the multitouch interface-- first in the iPhone, and now in the MacBook Air. Apple is expectedto expand this basic multitouch functionality to the remainder of theirnotebook product line.