Under that argument shouldn't the patents apply to the capacitive touch surfaces and not the gestures?

"Method for transportation by flying vehicle" is very different from "Construction method of flux capacitor that provides enough energy to power flying vehicles". The first is obvious and there is prior art even if people could not build it. The concepts of pinch-to-zoom or slide-to-unlock are obvious to even people without Phds in touch surface technologies.

Anything intuitive by definition should not be patentable.