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Fingerworks.com Content Pulled Ahead of Apple Tablet Announcement

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MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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The content of Fingerworks.com has been removed this week after remaining online for nearly 5 years after the acquisition of the company by Apple. The removal seems to correspond with the impending announcement of an Apple tablet later this month. One possible explanation is that Apple will finally be implementing many of the same advanced multi-touch keyboard gestures that were originally pioneered by Fingerworks.


155434-frontlp_300.jpg


Up until last week, Fingerworks.com retained photographs and details about their multi-touch keyboards and gesture pads they released for Macs years ago. In fact an old press release describes the benefits of their Multi-Touch system in a combination keyboard/touchpad:
The MacNTouch Gesture Keyboard is a complete user interface that serves as mouse, standard keyboard, and powerful multi-finger gesture interpreter. Mouse operations like point, click, drag, scroll, and zoom are combined seamlessly with touch-typing and multi-finger gesture everywhere on the MacNTouch's surface.
....
People are amazed by all the things a hand gesture user interface provides. We have a large number of easy- to-use gestures that cover just about every common computer operation. Users don't have to reach for hot-keys because gestures are faster and easier to do.
Click to expand...

155500-iGesture-Pad.jpg


It's been widely expected that this sort of all purpose multi-touch interface will be offered in Apple's upcoming tablet. Wayne Westerman who was one of the founders of Fingerworks has since been the author of many multi-touch patent applications from Apple, including advanced gesturing implementations for Mac OS X.

Article Link: Fingerworks.com Content Pulled Ahead of Apple Tablet Announcement
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2010/01/11/fingerworks-com-content-pulled-ahead-of-apple-tablet-announcement/
Vol7ron

Vol7ron

macrumors 6502
Jun 11, 2009
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Derry, NH
This thing is truly going to be amazing.....If it really does come true, i will most certainly buy one....
 
iPoodOverZune

iPoodOverZune

macrumors regular
Jan 13, 2007
235
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LOST
would love to see what comes out of this massive hype towards slate computing these days, especially wrt Apple's tablet project.
 
HiRez

HiRez

macrumors 603
Jan 6, 2004
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Gestures with multitouch is obvious, but the most interesting thing to me is how they're going to deal with text input. That's where they really need to figure out something new and radical, and a big reason why other tablets have all failed. If the world was willing to break out of the QWERTY box (and the two-handed typing box as well, perhaps), it opens up a lot of possibilities, but that's so entrenched I don't know if it's possible.
 
W

wizard

macrumors 68040
May 29, 2003
3,854
571
Interesting!

I'm still not convinced this would be viable for heavy duty input on a tablet. I guess we will know in a few days.

Looking at those old pictures does make one wonder just what this tablet will look like. That is will it be a rectangular tablet or something more unusual. Maybe not a tablet at all.

Dave
 
H

hugodrax

macrumors 65816
Jul 15, 2007
1,218
610
Apple FEB 220 call is trading with a IV of 35.54 which way above HV.

This is very bullish for an Apple Tablet announcement. such high IV indicates that Apple tablet is imminent.
 
crees!

crees!

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Jun 14, 2003
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HiRez said:
Gestures with multitouch is obvious, but the most interesting thing to me is how they're going to deal with text input. That's where they really need to figure out something new and radical, and a big reason why other tablets have all failed. If the world was willing to break out of the QWERTY box (and the two-handed typing box as well, perhaps), it opens up a lot of possibilities, but that's so entrenched I don't know if it's possible.
Click to expand...

There's going to have to be a standard when it comes to gestures across software/hardware vendors. Think of it by having keyboards from Apple, Dell, HP, Sony, etc all with different key layouts.
 
O

olternaut

macrumors 6502a
Dec 10, 2007
606
0
I own the fingerworks gesture pad you see there in the second picture. There is no way I will ever....EVER give that device up. It has helped reduce my repetitve stress injuries from using all those old fashioned, primitive input devices over the years. I'm sure many other owners would agree. In fact, since fingerworks has been acquired and effectively been put out of business, the only way to obtain one of the original fingerworks pads is to buy them from ebay. But even the used ones are fetching for over $500.00 for what was originally a $99 product.

Multi-Touch on the iphone is NOTHING compared to what can be done if we had a product with a larger surface area.
As for me, who cares about any learning curve? I've BEEN prepared. Bring on the gestures! :)

Trust me, any "learning curve" will be totally worth it to gain the ease of usability that such devices provide.

The google phone launch is over. CES is over.

Now it's time for the REAL show!!
 
Maclver

Maclver

macrumors 68030
Nov 23, 2008
2,660
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New Mexico
We should get a small hint tomorrow or wednesday with a invite from apple to the media..don't the generally send out invites 2wks before the event?
 
T

tethernaut

macrumors newbie
Dec 16, 2008
13
0
CHORD Input for Text

HiRez said:
Gestures with multitouch is obvious, but the most interesting thing to me is how they're going to deal with text input. That's where they really need to figure out something new and radical, and a big reason why other tablets have all failed. If the world was willing to break out of the QWERTY box (and the two-handed typing box as well, perhaps), it opens up a lot of possibilities, but that's so entrenched I don't know if it's possible.
Click to expand...

CHORD-based input of text is an obvious solution. It enables one-handed text input, is not dependent on having your hand positioned exactly w.r.t. a visual on the screen (eg. it could determine a baseline position and orientation from where your palm contacts the screen and place the 'keys' relative to that), and once you learn it it can be faster than QUERTY.
 
Small White Car

Small White Car

macrumors G4
Aug 29, 2006
10,966
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Washington DC
DipDog3 said:
Did they actually sell any of these?
Click to expand...

I may be wrong, but I don't think Fingerworks existed to really sell the products very much. They developed technology and made devices to show off that tech, but I think their point was to sell their inventions to other companies, not to make much money from their own devices.
 
H

hexor

macrumors 6502
Nov 26, 2002
271
88
Minnesota
DipDog3 said:
Did they actually sell any of these?
Click to expand...

I had a Touchstream LP I bought from Amazon before Apple bought them out. I returned it however because I did not like the smooth surface of the pad that gave you no tactile feedback like a normal keyboard.
 
cmaier

cmaier

Suspended
Jul 25, 2007
25,405
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California
tethernaut said:
CHORD-based input of text is an obvious solution. It enables one-handed text input, is not dependent on having your hand positioned exactly w.r.t. a visual on the screen (eg. it could determine a baseline position and orientation from where your palm contacts the screen and place the 'keys' relative to that), and once you learn it it can be faster than QUERTY.
Click to expand...

I had one of those chord keyboards (I have carpal tunnel), and found it very hard to use even after several months. I doubt Apple would foist this on the general public.
 
HiRez

HiRez

macrumors 603
Jan 6, 2004
6,250
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Western US
tethernaut said:
CHORD-based input of text is an obvious solution. It enables one-handed text input, is not dependent on having your hand positioned exactly w.r.t. a visual on the screen (eg. it could determine a baseline position and orientation from where your palm contacts the screen and place the 'keys' relative to that), and once you learn it it can be faster than QUERTY.
Click to expand...

Right, something like that is what I'm talking about...but once you have the method down, the larger problem is, how do you convince the world to accept and put in time learning an entirely new typing method? Or maybe you leave a QWERTY option for folks who aren't willing, but how do you convince enough people to really get a standard rolling? Things like Dvorak keyboards were a great idea, but they never caught on in a mass way and are still oddities.
 
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