After the passing of Steve Jobs, investors face uncertainty in shares of Apple (AAPL). Will the stock next hit $100 or $1,000? This article is the seventh in a series, ‘œThe Future of Apple,’ designed to give investors appropriate insights on the future of the iconic company.
A three-year old touched the TV screen, tried to scroll with one finger and then tried to zoom a part of the screen with two fingers. Touches of the child had no effect. The child yelled, ‘˜’Daddy, TV is broken, it does not work.’
Now that most of us are used to taking all kinds of actions by touching touch screens of our phones and tablets, it is easy to forget that such ease of use was not available to the masses only five years ago. As a matter of fact, Steve Jobs in 2007 called this revolutionary user interface magical.
When iPhone was introduced, the world witnessed a touch screen that could accurately interpret touches with multi fingers. Fortunately techies have given this technology a simple name ‘“ Multi-touch.
The technology is certainly magical, but more magical to an investor’s ears was the utterance by Steve Jobs, ‘œBoy, have we patented it!’
Let us start by examining U.S. patent #7,966,578 awarded to Apple. In plain language, the patent covers a single finger motion as scrolling through a page and using two fingers to manipulate a section of the page such as a map. For those interested in detail, here is the abstract of the patent:
‘˜A computer-implemented method, for use in conjunction with a portable multifunction device with a touch screen display, comprises displaying a portion of page content, including a frame displaying a portion of frame content and also including other content of the page, on the touch screen display. An N-finger translation gesture is detected on or near the touch screen display. In response, the page content, including the displayed portion of the frame content and the other content of the page, is translated to …Read More at Forbes
Other Articles in this Series:
Amazon Kindle Fire A Blessing For Apple In Google Battle
Adobe’s Flash Surrender Proves Steve Jobs And Apple Were Right All Along With HTML5
New Study Shows People Using Apple’s Siri Don’t Really Need Google
Apple To Make Billions On Google’s Android
Siri Is Apple’s Post-Jobs Ticket To $1,000
Tim Cook’s Leadership Determines Whether Apple Hits $100 or $1,000 Next
