With all the UMPCs being rolled out lately, Apple appears to be preparing one of its own, filing patents for a number of telltale technologies. First, in a patent application dated today, we see a single-arc QWERTY keyboard similar to Microsoft Touchpack software, with this drawing describing "activation of virtual keys of a touchscreen keyboard."

Apple filed another patent application on February 2 that described "gestures for touch sensitive input devices." There was mention of a virtual scroll wheel, a multipoint sensing device where you can use several fingers to manipulate images on screen, and other virtual screen ideas as well. Sounds like an Origami-style UMPC to us. Or something.

Apple Origami UMPC? Looks likely [UMPC News]

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