Gestures of War
The battle to control iPhone-like multitouch technology has the gadget world in a pinch
WIRED magazine
April 2009 (17.04) issue
By Daniel Roth
The Pre, Palm's ridiculously slick new mobile phone, stole the show at CES this year. Good looks helped, but mainly it was the Pre's iPhone-like touchscreen technology that wowed the industry crowd. Sure, the Pre has a built-in keyboard, but all anyone wanted to do was drag their fingers along the screen and make magic happen: pop windows open, scroll through sites, fling the contact list to the bottom of the display.
The gestures were intuitive, fun, and basically copies of Apple's. Two weeks later, Apple COO expressed his irritation (without directly naming Palm) to analysts on a conference call: "We will not stand for having our IP ripped off, and we'll use whatever weapons we have at our disposal. I don't know that I can be clearer than that."
Them there are fighting words. (more)
