Apple Successfully Patents Multitouch, Palm Cringes
By Simon Sage on Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 at 7:36 AM PST In Apple, Legal
The other day Palm snarled back at Apple for suggesting they were ripping off iPhone IP, but now Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) is armed with a big fat multitouch and swipe gestire patent which could smack Palm (NSDQ: PALM) right in the face. The new Palm Pre, announced at CES a few weeks ago, featured some very familiar looking pinching gestures which drew audible swooning from the crowds, but had plenty of folks glancing at their iPhone at the same time. Assuming Apple has an iron grip on the patent and it isn’t disputed or worked around, the best scenario is if Palm forks over licensing fees to Apple so their last ditch at survival isn’t totally snuffed out. To see the specifics of Apple’s patent, hit up the US Patent Office.
[via World of Apple]
As much as I like my iPhone 3G, if Apple keeps multi-touch off the Palm Pre, Jobs and I are going to have problems….
Other mobile companies should stress about multi-touch capability mostly because of mobile applications. Multi-touch is one of the main things developers have been wanting from the G1 and Android that has not come through. Now that most serious mobile developers have been working in the Apple environment, the lack of multi-touch on other mobile phone systems could seriously limit their ability to create intuitive applications and to use the same coding already used in iPhone apps.