It seems Apple has seen so much success with multitouch that it is expanding this UI. A series of patents applied for by the company show how the Cupertino company's gesture-based interface will potentially be able to determine when your device is being removed from your pocket, being held against your ear or near other body parts.

Just as Apple blazed a new trail with the mouse and the GUI with the Mac (yes I know they didn't invent the GUI) they will now apparently do the same with the gesture-based UI or GBUI.

It is also interesting to note that such an interface could perform different actions based upon whether a finger or fingernail is touching a screen. This would be similar to the right click button on many mice.

It will be very interesting to see if the rest of the world follows Apple's lead. It seems that if Apple's interface does become the defacto input mechanism for mobile devices and other vendors don't get on board soon... It may be impossible to play in the mobile device game.

It is safe to say that Apple will likely not license these patents to others.