Macworld 2007: Best iPhone Features Throwback: Multi-touch, Cover Flow & "the Pinch"

[by Carleen Hawn] There are lots of reasons to swoon over Apple’s resplendant iPhone, introduced today in Jobs’ Macworld keynote address: the thinness; the button-less “widescreen” with its 160 pixels per square inch; Google Maps; rich email; a full-fledged browser; entire pages of the the NYTimes viewable on your phone! But of the 200 patented innovations loaded into the iPhone, the one that actually makes all these potential utilities work on a3.5 inch screen is the one that makes it possible for the device to be operated sans-keypad, what Jobs has dubbed “Multi-Touch.”
It begins with the fact that a fully-fledged OS X runs inside the iPhone. This, in turn, means desktop quality applications, including a user-interface that changes depending which application you are using. You see buttons with dates when you use the calendar, but buttons with numbers when you use the phone app, and tabs from your music play list when you use the iPod app–just as on your PowerBook. (The trouble with keypads on SmartPhones is that the buttons never go away, taking up precious space from the screen.) Eliminating the need for fixed indicators is especially smart because when Apple invents a new app, they won’t need to design a new keypad to accommodate it, they’ll just load up your iPhone with new software.
And so how is the iPhone UI manipulated?
“Who wants a stylus? Yuck!” Jobs asked. “We’re going to use the best point device in the world–we’re all born with one: it’s our finger!”
Building on innovations like the Mouse and the iPod ClickWheel, the iPhone showcases what Jobs called Multi-Touch