Apple considering pen tablet? « The BEST Apple Hardware and Software Reviews

Written By Editor November 13th, 2009

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Unwired news reports that a recent patent application made by Apple, details software diagrams for processing pen strokes. Filed on the 29th July, 2009, the application is understood to broadly apply to usage both on Pen based input devices and computers. The patent also references tablets.

Here’s what Unwired said:

To tell the truth, the patent app has little to do with a tablet computer per se. It’s mostly concerned how to make digital ink recognition/interpretation process better, especially when filling out various forms. And it achieves that by trying to recognize full ink phrases, instead of a separate ink strokes:  The ink manager collects separate ink strokes, determines when a whole phrase have been entered and passes that phrase to handwriting recognition engine.

This recent patent suggests Apple are not entirely tied to using finger based, multi-touch input such as on the iPhone. Whether or not this means the Apple tablet will require or make use of a stylus is a whole another subject.