Apple Shuts Down Fingerworks. More Apple Tablet Rumors Fly.

Today, Apple has removed all of the content from Fingerworks.com. It has essentially been shut down, five years after Apple purchased the company. According to MacRumors, up until last week, Fingerworks.com retained photographs and details about their multi-touch keyboards and gesture pads they released for Macs years ago. I’m sure you can put two and two together.

Could Apple plan to use some of their technology as peripheral devices?  Perhaps a multi-touch pad of some sort?  After all, we are all expecting some kind of multi-touch in this new Apple Tablet.  Additionally, we have heard information that there is supposedly a learning curve to the Apple Tablet so perhaps multi-touch pads are entirely possible.  There really isn’t much like that, though I guess the Macbook and Macbook Pro’s trackpad has some multi-touch built in as well.  We shall see.

Here is an excerpt from one of Fingerworks’ old press releases:

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.

It is also worth pointing out that 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.