Much has been written about the iPhone’s fancy Multi-Touch interface, not least here on MYiPhone, but up until now the actual origins of the technology Apple has been using has been something doused in no small amount of secret. Well, intrigue over… at least in part. It turns out that Apple are implementing Jeff Han’s multi-touch screen “FingerWorks” project that they bought back in June last year. Han, a consulting research scientist at NYU’s Department of Computer Science, hit tech-headlines in February 2006 for his work with real-time computer interfaces. An eye-catching demonstration in Monterey obviously caught Apple’s eye as a potential solution for their long-term cellphone plan; you can see the video of that after the cut.

Thing is, a lot of the cool stuff that Multi-Touch has let Apple do with the iPhone has been around for a long while. Shrinking and growing on-screen objects with pinching gestures dates back to 1992 and work Bruce Tognazzini did while at Sun Microsystems. But as Bruce himself points out, the iPhone is very much more than the sum of its tech:

“The origins of these bits and pieces, however, is not what’s important about the iPhone. What’s important is that, for the first time, so many great ideas and processes have been assembled in one device, iterated until they squeak, and made accessible to normal human beings. That’s the genius of Steve Jobs; that’s the genius of Apple”

He goes on to examine the positives and negatives of Apple’s hardware and software choices, working through the spec list from phone and iPod functionality to the much-anticipated Safari mobile web browser. It’s a fair assessment; high on Bruce’s praise list are contact book management, video playback using the orientation-sensor and the way Safari can slice an article out from a webpage and make it easier to read, while still saving some criticism for the compartmentalised SMS, email and voicemail inboxes as well as the closed third-party support.

Overall, though, it’s another article that highlights just how promising the iPhone is and how hotly anticipated it is by consumers and analysts alike. Yes, there will be first-generation omissions but, in Tognazzini’s words, it’s a magnificent start.

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The Multi touch screen and The iPhone User Experience: A First Look