Patently Apple

Apple Delves into Three Dimensional Multi-Touch Skins

 
When Apple introduced the iPhone in January 2007, it turned the mobile phone industry on its head. It changed everything we knew about smartphones and threw out the manual. That's what secret out-of-the-blue technology could do when applied just right. With the iPhone's success, the Crazy Ones of Cupertino went into high gear. They were scribbling ideas on bar napkins as their teams feverishly pushed the idea of what Multi-Touch was and more importantly, could be. Today you'll learn about their new Three Dimensional Multi-Touch skin technology; an idea that could explode into a plethora of future product concepts.   

MicroUnity Systems Engineering Dragging Apple Back to Court

 
MicroUnity Systems Engineering, Inc. of Santa Clara, California has launched another patent infringement law suit against Apple and nineteen others in the telecom and handset sectors including AT&T, Nokia, Samsung, Verizon, Texas Instruments, HTC Corporation, Palm, Google and Qualcomm. We covered their initial lawsuit against Apple back in March 2010. In this new case, the entire focus is on a single patent which is challenging Apple's A4 processor and all its related products.    

Apple Files for "Ping" Trademark Protection in Europe & China

 
It's been an interesting month for Ping, Apple's new social network for music service. Last week we discovered through a patent filing that Apple has been working on a new high octane iTunes App that tightly ties into Ping and overnight we discovered that Apple has filed for trademark protection for Ping in both China and Europe. Apple has filed for protection under six International Classes covering everything under the sun including online social networking services, digital music, telecommunications, education, entertainment services, promotional items and more.  

Introducing: The Apple Patent Song

 
In July 2010, Jonathan Mann found himself center stage with Steve Jobs who played his song called The iPhone Antenna Song. Jonathan and his band will be performing at Macworld 2011 this Saturday in San Francisco. Jonathan's latest tune is called "The Apple Patent Song." He emailed me this afternoon with a link to his new video for the song and I thought it would be fun to post it and wish Jonathan the best for this weekend. Check out the YouTube video after the break and have some fun.  

Apple Pushes Research into Motion Keyboards for MacBooks +

 
A pair of new Apple patent applications have surfaced this month at the USPTO that clearly illustrate Apple's research efforts are mounting in the area of motion sensing and motion tracking. The first patent is all about controlling keyboard and gesture command sensitivities to accommodate public commuters while they work. The second is more dramatic and points to a new hybrid motion tracking desktop keyboard. The thing is that the latter is also being considered for use in Apple's MacBook line up. This would eliminate the use of trackpad and need for a touch display. There's no doubt that Apple is pushing hard to find a way to implement gestures on Apple's desktop and notebook products to support OS X Lion and beyond. At this point however, it's a little too early in the game to call the winner. Update 3:20  PM PST: New details have emerged about the motion tracking keyboard and are detailed herein.