Apple granted patent for operation of a computer with a touch screen interface
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Nov 3, 2009 at 2:11pm
Apple has been granted a patent (number 7614008) for the operation of a computer with a touch screen interface—a la the iPhone and iPod touch.
Here’s Apple’s summary of the invention: “A touch screen computer executes an application. A method of operating the touch screen computer in response to a user is provided. A virtual input device is provided on the touch screen. The virtual input device comprises a plurality of virtual GUI items (which may be, in some specific examples, virtual keys of a virtual keyboard). It is detected that a user has touched the touch screen to nominally activate at least one virtual GUI item (e.g., virtual key), and a behavior of the user with respect to touch is determined. The determined behavior is processed and a predetermined characteristic is associated with the nominally-activated at least one virtual GUI item. A reaction to the nominal activation is determined based at least in part on a result of processing the determined behavior.”
A method of operating the touch screen computer in response to a user is provided. A virtual input device is provided on the touch screen. The virtual input device comprises a plurality of virtual keys. It is detected that a user has touched the touch screen to nominally activate at least one virtual key, and a behavior of the user with respect to touch is determined. The determined behavior is processed and a predetermined characteristic is associated with the nominally-activated at least one virtual key. A reaction to the nominal activation is determined based at least in part on a result of processing the determined behavior.
The inventor is Bas Ording. The graphic below is a block diagram of an exemplary touch-screen based computer system.
For more info on patents, check out Patents.com, a free patent search site.
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 10,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
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