[snowwrestler]

The root of the iPhone's multitouch technology was in a company called Fingerworks, which was founded in the late 1990s by some academics, and acquired in 2004 by Apple. Fingerworks touch keyboards and trackpads worked extremely well and supported complex gestures using up to 5 fingers.

The 2005 Powerbook was the first to support multi-finger input on the trackpad... probably not a coincidence. We now know that the tablet/phone project kicked into high gear around this time as well.

I think this is really where Apple took a big step in their trackpads across the board. I had an iBook from before this time and while the trackpad was nice, I did not think it was way better than my PC laptop's trackpad. The biggest difference was that the Mac trackpad was about 30% larger.

Apple also invested in touch concept company-wide, including gestures in their marketing and shipping a trackpad as a first-class option for desktops in 2010. I think part of the reason Apple has done well with touch is that they just prioritized it and tried harder at it.