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by littletimmy 3946 days ago
I don't get how this was a patent to begin with. The door in my room has a "slide-to-unlock" lock that dates back 50 years. Surely Apple did not invent this.
1 comments

I think it is a mistake to suggest that slide to unlock on a touchscreen and a sliding bolt are the same concepts. The important thing as I see it is a way to change a touchscreen from a state of "unresponsive to input" to a state of "responsive to input" by requiring a very restricted set of inputs to be entered. "Swipe to unlock" is just one (pretty good) definition of this restricted set of inputs. I think this is quite conceptually different from a physical lock unlocking a physical door.
Don't know the technical terms but how is "unresponsive to input" when you can interact with the lock screen. For example swiping/expanding notifications, change songs, etc. For me "unresponsive to input" to a state of "responsive to input" would be the power/home button let's you interact with the screen.
Fine. Change "unresponsive to input" to "unresponsive to all but a very restricted subset of all possible inputs".
But they are literally the same concept.