In what's considered the definitive overview of Apple's attempts to patent its multi-touch interface, a deluge of newly-public filings show Apple considering technology that hasn't yet been used in the iPhone or the Mac — including sensing the difference between body parts, explaining gestures through activities, and even responding differently to input from fingernails.
Not content with its Inkwell technology, Apple has started a search for a handwriting recognition engineer to improve Mac OS X and, potentially, the iPhone. Also, the company has issued separate updates for AirPort Extreme on Tiger systems as well as newer Mac Pro workstations.
An initiative on the part of Apple Inc. to develop a modern day successor to its now defunct Newton handheld device is not expected to play a role in next week's Macworld Expo.
In a special 4-page report titled "How the iPhone Blew Up the Wireless Industry," technology magazine Wired delves deep into the origins of Apple's iPhone project, revealing a slew of previously undisclosed details surrounding the multi-year development of the device.
Sources familiar with Apple's plans for 2008 report that the company is eyeing a new mobile processor from Intel code-named Silverthorne for use in a new generation of handheld devices. That has broad implications for Apple's expanding role in consumer electronics, and holds out the prospect for the company to play the savior for a chip originally designed to power the second-generation of Microsoft's beleaguered UMPCs.
Apple Inc. will form a closer bond with once-rival Intel Corp. early next year when it begins building a new breed of ultra-mobile processors from the chipmaker into a fresh generation of handheld devices, AppleInsider has learned.
For Apple, 2007 may in some ways represent the very beginning of a new standard in innovation, with 2008 likely giving way to a slew of new Mac models in addition to fresh initiatives like an iTunes movie rental service and a new class of touch-based games, according to investment bank Piper Jaffray.
A prominent gadget blog on Tuesday cited manufacturing sources as saying that Apple is indeed working on some kind of tablet handheld. Meanwhile, references to an iPhone voice memo feature are making the rounds (again). And iPhone will be available at over 1,300 retail locations in the UK this Friday, Apple says.
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Aidan Malley
Katie Marsal
AppleInsider Staff
Prince McLean
Kasper Jade
