News.blog: Is Apple making a UMPC?

A new patent application filed on behalf of Apple suggests the company might be planning its own implementation of the UltraMobile PC concept.

A patent filing spotted by UMPC News covers a touch-screen keyboard on a product that resembles the UMPC or Origami devices introduced by Intel and Microsoft last month. The application describes a virtual QWERTY keyboard that covers one half of a screen. It looks a bit like the virtual keyboard that Apple's touch-screen keyboard will be used on Origami devices, except that Microsoft's version splits the keyboard into two pieces on opposite sides of the screen, according to the Origami Project's blog.

Mac OS X already has a feature called Inkwell that can translate handwritten notes into text, and the company has worked on touch-screen technology in the past. Samsung is expected to launch its first Origami device on 1 May.