On August 16, 2012, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a series of video related patent applications from Apple mainly covering iMovie and Final Cut Pro. If you're a video buff, then today is going to be a feast for you. The patent applications cover topics such as live dragging and editing, new novel editing and masking tools and so much more. There's far too much information for us to properly cover in this report and so we've provided you with Apple's patent abstract for each application along with a direct link to each of them so that you could explore them at will. One thing is for sure, Apple's Randy Ubillos and his engineer teams have definitely been burning the midnight oil so as to keep Apple's video applications on the cutting edge.
In June, Macworld reported that Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed in an email to an Apple customer that the company is working on "something really great" to address the professional market. Earlier this week we posted a report on Apple's surprising patent win for a radical radial menus patent that illustrated the new system would apply to the iMac, Mac Pro and yes, the iPad. Today, the U.S. Patent Office published a jaw dropping Apple patent that reveals that they're working on a new advanced graphics app to take on Adobe's Photoshop and Illustrator. The new app will also be aimed at Macs and the iPad. The system is being designed to work with both the mouse and touchscreen gestures. Apple's two detailed patent applications cover the basics of the graphics app and their new simplified object layering system. It's clear that Tim Cook's email message about something really great is on the way for the professional market is starting to really take shape indeed.
Last week Apple filed a detailed patent application relating to a new iPhone audio-sharing network concept. While the filing touches on hearing aid technology, it is by no means limited to that narrow definition. Another application applies to teleconferencing, for example. In fact, one of the benefits of this technology relates to a "conference telephone." The technology is designed to cut out background murmurs and general noise while executives discuss business with distant colleagues and/or potential clients. At the end of the day, the patent relates to both students and the enterprise. Yes, the Devil is in the details.
On July 26, 2012, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals an exciting new annotation application that's in the works. If you consider that ten extremely detailed applications were published on this one project alone today, I'd have to say that it's likely a priority project. The applications cover new navigation and annotation modes that will assist readers working with electronic documents, digital books, newspapers and magazines. While it would take days to comb through these applications to list all of the coming features, our report focuses on just a few of them including a new annotation toolbar. At the end of the day, it was quite the surprise to find these patent gems and for students and professionals who need to use annotation tools, this is going to be a huge leap forward for the iPad. It's the kind of tool that will help the iPad push further into the enterprise and beyond.
In a review of Apple's Final Cut Pro X 10.0.3 in February, StudioDaily noted that "two nice things in the 10.0.1 update were the ability to apply a custom sequence starting timecode and XSAN support, which lets you support an XSAN volume for media and event storage." They concluded by stating that it didn't mean true collaborative editing was here yet but that it was a start. The interesting thing about this is that Apple was just granted a patent for Final Cut Pro this week and its total focus was on this very point: collaborative editing in real-time. Final Cut Pro fans tell me that this would be a major feature that many of them have dreamed of and hoped for. Well, let it be known, it's a feature on Apple's roadmap via this week's granted patent.
On July 19, 2012, the US Patent & Trademark Office published two patent applications from Apple that reveal coming tweaks to OS X and possibly iOS. The first patent covers changes coming to the OS X Finder while the other patent is a little more ambitious. We find Apple introducing us to "virtual boundaries" associated with an upgrade to the docking system that will accommodate multiple docks for apps, operating system components and more. It's also believed that the Finder tweaks found in today's patent may actually be associated with Apple's upcoming OS X Mountain Lion.
The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of twenty-five newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In today's first granted patent report we focus entirely on a single patent that represents another major iPhone and iOS interface victory for Apple. Some may be bored to hear about it, many will moan, groan and shout that the patent system is broken because of it. Yet to Apple's legal team, it's simply music to their ears. Apple reinvented the smartphone, and today they get another patent victory to celebrate that fact. Wherever you are Steve, Cheers!
On June 28, 2012, the US Patent & Trademark Office published patent applications from Apple covering GarageBand, multiple camera sensors for iDevices, new optical display coatings and more. The US Patent Office has yet to publish the patent graphics for the patents we cover today. When they do, we'll update our report accordingly. Apple's dearth of patent applications now runs five straight weeks. Where oh where are Apple's talented engineers of late? This is the longest running patent drought since Patently Apple has covered Apple's patents.
One of the most surprising patents ever to be granted to Apple has been made public today by the US Patent and Trademark Office. It is one of the most interesting patents that I have ever read. It reads like a science fiction novel borrowing from George Orwell's 1949 book titled "Nineteen Eighty-Four." It also has shades of the 1982 movie the "Blade Runner," where the Master Cloner invents a method of implanting false memories into clones so as to provide them with a confident self-image. It also borrows from the movie "The Matrix," where fooling the bots of your presence was an everyday means of survival. Apple's patent is about saving your online identity from what they describe as the "Little Brothers Dataveillance." It's about a method of assisting users to keep their personal information hidden in a Cyberworld that is constantly building a profile on them. It appears that Apple will be able to "save us" from these Little Brothers in the future and it looks as though they're going to execute this via your iCloud ID. Today's report is deliberately lengthy so that you don't miss a detail of Apple's very important anti-big brother surveillance patent. This is really wild stuff.
Patently Apple has discovered that Apple has filed a patent in Korea relating to Radial Menus that could apply to both OS X and iOS as is illustrated in our cover graphic. Apple states that their invention is "directed towards the presentation of menu or toolbar options in a graphical user interface. Specifically, the invention is directed towards presenting these options in a radial form."This is Apple's second patent application regarding this particular form of presenting menus and/or toolbars, though they have others that borrow from this theme that we link to in our report.
On June 7, 2012, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals their work on possible new QuickTime interface controls. The new controls will allow users to set a speed of playback which will provide users with superior playback accuracy. The new controls temporarily replace the traditional timeline scrubber. When the user taps on the scrubber, the interface will begin to morph and pop-out in 3D fashion to reveal the new interface controls. It's a practical idea delivered in an interface that only Apple could dream up.
Patently Apple has been following Apple's patent applications over the years regarding future interfaces and three dimensional visions, and today we present you with a series of patent applications from Apple regarding Safari 3D. The 3D version of Safari will allow users to stack bookmarks, emails, docs and apps in a very interesting 3D manner. While we're definitely a few years away from shifting to 3D, it's still interesting to read up on the evolutionary thinking behind this shift from the minds of Apple's engineers.
