Patent Application Points to Swipe Gestures for iPhone’s Virtual Keyboard

Apple may be adding useful swipe gesturing functionality to the virtual keyboard on the company’s mobile devices, according to a report at MacRumors.

Blogger Arnold Kim describes two potentially effective additions to Apple’s touch interface contained in a patent application filed yesterday with the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Aside from the single finger swipes depicted in the diagrams below, multi-touch gestures (two and three fingers) could invoke other special functions. If a single finger left-swipe might delete a letter, a two finger left-swipe could delete a whole word, and a three finger left-swipe could delete a line. Similarly, a single finger right-swipe could add a space, while a two finger right-swipe could add a period. Up swipes and down swipes could also invoke different functions based on the number of fingers used.

As with Apple’s evolving multi-touch notebook trackpads, these optional functions could provide iPhone and iPod Touch users with useful and welcome shortcuts.

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