(I know all this is still a mere glimmer in a patent-filer’s eye so its not really fair to be negative about it but…)
I’m of two minds about this. On one hand, my initial instinct is that all these variations in a what is still an incredibly new control paradigm would greatly overwhelm most users.
On the other hand, playing with the advanced multitouch on the Macbook Air the past few days gets me really excited about the ways those interactions will evolve over time and if anyone can pull it off, Apple can.
Who knows? Maybe this will get us one step closer to him:
and this:
Apple Depicts Advanced Multitouch Gesturing Control Panel in Mac OS X – Mac Rumors