Clues that Apple will release a Mac Touch

Apple, of course, is tight-lipped about its plans on future product announcements. It does seem, however, that Apple has definite plans to release a Macintosh-like product that utilizes the iPhone/iPod Touch's interface.

• Ink(well) - The Macintosh's handwriting recognition system introduced in Jaguar hasn't been updated since 2006. As such a significant aspect of computing, it would seem irresponsible for Apple to abandon this important technology. Apple has to be working on a successor. Most likely it is the multitouch interface. Or Ink 2.0?
• Multitouch already exists on Mac platform. Using the touchpads on MacBooks and MacBookPros, you can scroll around a webpage using two fingers on the touchpads. A few other multitouch tricks exist but most people don't take full advantage of them. When the multitouch moves to the screen from the trackpad the usefulness will become much more apparent - like it is on the iPhone/iPod touch.
• Job listings. Apple listed a job for a QA tester for "iPod and Mac Touch interfaces". The job was quickly pulled from the website.
• Dell is set to release a Multi-Touch Tablet early in 2008. Do you think that Steve Jobs will let Michael Dell beat him to the punch on this?
• Steve Jobs said so himself. New York Times' Jon Markoff got Apple's CEO to mention his affinity for the Touch interface.

Indeed, many of the new features in the Leopard operating system version are incremental improvements. But Mr. Jobs said he was struck by the success of the multitouch interface that is at the heart of the iPhone version of the OS X. This allows a user to touch the screen at more than one point to zoom in on a portion of a photo, for example.
“People don’t understand that we’ve invented a new class of interface,” he said.
He contrasted it with stylus interfaces, like the approach Microsoft took with its tablet computer. That interface is not so different from what most computers have been using since the mid-1980s.
In contrast, Mr. Jobs said that multitouch drastically simplified the process of controlling a computer.
There are no “verbs” in the iPhone interface, he said, alluding to the way a standard mouse or stylus system works. In those systems, users select an object, like a photo, and then separately select an action, or “verb,” to do something to it.

My bet is that the multi-touch screen will come to the Mac portables soon. If not at Macworld, then in the next few months.