Apple has been filing touchscreen patents for quite some time now. But the latest patent that Apple has filed with US patent office in April 2008 is the most detailed touchscreen patent by Apple. The patent deals with almost all the aspects of a touchscreen UI for a tablet kind of handheld device. The 52 page patent talks about controls with finger inputs, avoiding accidental input, scrolling horizontally or vertically and touch QWERTY keyboard.
Controls such as option boxes or buttons would enlarge when the thumb is place on them or when a finger targets a button. For scrolling, Apple illustrates iPhone like scrolling method and two-finger scrolling where one finger can also be used to select from the list. Apple also explains scrollwheel use where if user touches certain number of fingers or when a user touches a specific area of the GUI a iPod like scrollwheel will appear that will allow both horizontal and vertical scrolling.
The new patent is an update to a patent that was originally applied in 2004 and was granted to Apple. The patent expands and extends the original patent by including various new aspects of touch UI design.
[Via AppleInsider & Slash Gear]