I didn't go through all the posts, but Steve also hints that the next releases of Mac OS X would probably offer some sort of interface using the multi-touch technology.
Indeed, many of the new features in the Leopard operating system version are incremental improvements. But Mr. Jobs said he was struck by the success of the multitouch interface that is at the heart of the iPhone version of the OS X.
This is something they've been planning for quite some time if you follow not only the patent filings but the product evolution. They have been experimenting with capacitance-sensing input devices for a while... the Mighty Mouse, the new MacBook trackpad with two-fingered scrolling, etc. The iPhone is just their first "toe in the water" with a full blown interface being controlled via multitouch input.
There have also been systematic enhancements coming gradually, like Coverflow, which hint at a definite strategy to migrate to a multitouch input. This of course would not entirely eliminate other input options, just as the mouse did not eliminate the keyboard, but it would offer users a new dimension of input and physics-based feedback (i.e. an interface that "reacts" to your multitouch input the way you would expect real objects to... elastic lists, scroll-flick momentum, etc.) to provide the user with many layers of information during your interaction with the technology.
Apple's goal has always been to make transparent the technology in between the user and the application/function. This facilitates the most productive, most comfortable, user experience when you are interacting with a machine in a way that is most familiar to you, rather than having to conform to input standards that are most familiar to and convenient for the machine but not intuitive or instinctive to us.
Be on the lookout in the next three years for many other types of multitouch devices from Apple. EvangeList founder and Apple Fellow Guy Kawasaki's statement about Apple's success holds true... they succeed simply because they know how to make "cool stuff that people want". Multitouch is in the fold as a technology so intuitive, organic and elegant that, unlike many other technologies at work today, makes us feel like we really, truly are living in the 21st century.
Check out this demonstration by
Perceptive Pixel to see what larger-scale multitouch surfaces can do. The first thing that came to my mind was the Pre-Crime computer in "Minority Report." The technology in this demo is fundamentally the same and as real as the technology in the iPhone interface. We'll see everything from gaming simulation to medical diagnostics taking advantage of these types of interfaces over the next 3-5 years.
It's what we call a game-changer... it redefines the industry in a way that there's no turning back from. This will become the standard interface of the future against which others will be measured, just like the desktop interface as Macintosh defined it twenty years ago.
