With introduction of multitouch trackpad on MacBook lineup it has become very obvious that Apple will not keep multitouch to iPhone only. Macblogz is reporting that Apple has filed a patent application describing a multitouch mouse. The application details an “arbitrary shaped grippable member” that incorporates positioning and multitouch detection to determine a user action. In patent application Apple says “ For example, gestures can be created to detect and effect a user command to resize a window, scroll a display, rotate an object, zoom in or out of a displayed view, delete or insert text or other objects, etc.”
Apple further adds “gestures can also be used to invoke and manipulate virtual control interfaces, such as volume knobs, switches, sliders, handles, knobs, doors and other widgets that may be created to facilitate human interaction with the computer system.”
As with all patent applications we don’t know when if ever Apple will release a product based on this patent. However use of multitouch technology on mouse looks very promising and we hope that Apple will come up with a real multitouch mouse soon.