A patent application filed by Apple in March 2006 shows that the company may well be looking into other uses for multi-touch technology.

Apple lists the following as some of the claims for the filing;

1. A configurable mouse with an extended sensing surface, which provides the mouse a customizable, programmable or adaptable way of generating inputs, the mouse including an arbitrarily shaped grippable member having a 3D shape, a position detection mechanism that detects the movement of the mouse along a surface, a multipoint touch detection mechanism that detects one or more objects that are contacting or in close proximity to a substantially large portion of the grippable member, and a controller for processing signals generated by the position detection mechanism and multipoint touch detection mechanism.

2. The configurable mouse as recited in claim 1 wherein the grippable member includes no fixed input areas.

3. The configurable mouse as recited in claim 1 wherein the grippable member is formed from a single member with a full continuous surface, which defines the front, sides, back and top surfaces of the mouse.

In another embodiment the touch sensitive mouse would use a built-in light source and an “optically transmissive surface” to trace finger positions.

Gestures can also be used to invoke and manipulate virtual control interfaces, such as volume knobs, switches, sliders, handles, knobs, doors, and other widgets that may be created to facilitate human interaction with the computing system.