On January 6, 2010, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals one of the next chapters for Apple's iPad. The patent introduces us to three and four speaker arrays that will advance the iPad's audio range so as to cover high range tweeter and a lower range speaker. But the patent packs a bigger punch by illustrating the iPad's camera that will include facial and location orientation. So if you're chatting in landscape or portrait, the camera will reorient itself accordingly. The patent also shows us that Apple is thinking of a very cool iPad stand. It's a concept, but one that would be very, very cool to own.
As the old saying goes, sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees. Today, Apple was granted design patents for the iPad and iPhone 4. In total, there were 18 patents to report on today and we didn't initially see that Apple's US granted patent graphics actually confirm that there's an extra landscape docking connector in the design. Is this feature coming to the iPad-2 in 2011? We certainly hope so.
This week the European Trademarks and Designs Registration Office confirmed that one of Apple's new iPad designs is displaying an extra left side 30 pin connector to allow it to dock in landscape mode under application001222905-0001. The first sighting of this design was noted on September 25, 2010. This time around, we see that Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive have signed off on the design. That's always a good sign for things to come, wouldn't you agree?
The US Patent and Trademark Office has published a handful of Apple's patent applications today that mainly consists of continuation patents. Interestingly, within this group, we see that Apple has resubmitted and/or expanded upon their "Visual Expander" patent. The reason that this is interesting is that while the patent was resubmitted back in late June, Apple had actually been granted a patent for it in July. This advanced multi-touch feature which has yet to surface on any portable device, may in fact be one of the advances coming to a future iPad and/or iMac Touch. This report revisits Apple's "Visual Expander" patent in respect to multi-touch features for anyone who missed out on it on the first go-around while touching on Apple's "Back to the Mac" event scheduled for next week.
On October 7, 2010, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a continuation patent application from Apple that may reveal their intention of integrating the MagSafe power connector into future portables such as the iPhone or iPad. Apple put the pedal to the metal on this continuation patent filing which was only filed in June of this year. Is someone in a rush or something?
There was a little secret divulged by Apple's CEO Steve Jobs at this year's Wall Street Journal D8 conference, hosted andproduced byWalt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. It was that Apple had actually designed and created a tablet device first and then shelved it in favor of going to market with the iPhone first. Well, today the US Patent and Trademark Office officially published one of Apple's classic tablet and handheld patents first filed in 2005. It didn't look like much at the time and the naysayers said that Apple would never ever bring a tablet of any kind to market because of the failed Newton and Tablet PC. Today we celebrate Apple's vision and courage of conviction for bringing us the Revolutionary iPhone.
Today, in a newly published patent application from Apple Inc., we get to see a glimpse behind one of the many processes behind their new powerhouse A4 processor. Apple's patent reveals systems and methods for providing a system-on-a-substrate. In particular, this patent relates to systems and methods for reducing the total size of a system's circuitry by providing all of the components of the system on the same microchip. A microchip that the patent reveals is behind the iPad, iPhone and likely to be used in other future Apple products such as Apple TV.
Just prior to Apple's debut of the iPad in January, they were granted a major patent for a Proximity Detector for Tablets. Today, history appears to want to repeat itself by granting Apple major patents just five days prior to the official iPad launch. This patent is a whopper being that it covers accelerometers specifically in tune with multiple applications relating to games, maps, 3D Surround Sound speakers and more. Apple's second major win is for utilizing multiple broadband antennas for the iPhone and iPad 3G. Someone in Cupertino is smiling this morning – that's for sure.
On March 18, 2010, the US Patent & Trademark Office published 17 patent applications from Apple Inc. The notables within this group include one that we covered earlier this morning titled "iGroups: Apple's New iPhone Social App in Development," in addition to another relating to an "up-to-date commute time" application for Apple's iPhone. This wild and crazy app will help you with your commute to work on time by notifying you of traffic problems and new routes to consider while automatically rescheduling your meetings that are in your iPhone calendar and even reset the clock on your coffee maker. Sorry it doesn't make breakfast. Other patents today include a look at Apple's iWork Pages template feature that even applies to their upcoming iPad. And lastly, there are two more patents that build on a January patent about new features that may be coming to Apple's Magic Mouse in the future.
On March 11, 2010, the US Patent & Trademark Office published 28 patent applications from Apple and in this report we point to one of the patents behind Apple's iPad display technology, a new patent revealing a new audio plug for the iPhone and iPod touch that is positioned on the right side of the unit which may suggest that the audio had to be moved to make way for a new component such as a video calling camera perhaps? And lastly, Apple reveals their secret sauce behind the iPod Touch assembly – which I can't wait to try at home – ha!
The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 7 newly granted patents and 5 design related patents for Apple Inc. today. The two notables within this group include one relating to Apple's iChat feature known as "Take Video Snapshot," and the other relating to a major granted patent for a multipoint screen. That patent is specifically focused on a larger two handed Tablet or as the patent defines as a Tablet PC. It almost appears that Apple held back their tablet, known as the iPad, until certain key patents came to light. Apple's IPS patent came to light on January 7 and was highlighted in our special report titled Apple's iPad: Welcome to the Revolution – and on January 26, Apple was granted a major multi-touch tablet patent covering such things as a larger virtual keyboard which debuted on the iPad in connection with their word processor called "Pages" and Apple's Mail. Todays granted patent represents Apple's third patent in this quarter thus far – and further protects Apple's multi-touch technologies against challengers and would-be competitors such as Google.
On Tuesday, a very insightful granted patent of Apple's came to light describing an intelligent bezel. Today, that very same theme continues and goes much further this time around to include what Apple describes as intelligent "sense lines." Sense lines could surround the display of a media player unseen under the multi-touch display glass as an alternative to a physical bezel which was described in Tuesday's granted patent in context with a tablet.In covering Tuesday's patent report, Paul Boutin of VentureBeat wondered if Apple's technology would apply to an iPhone. "The clickwheel makes the iPod simple and relaxing to use, rather than fumbling through menus and pressing buttons. I can operate an iPod while jogging. Wish I could say that for my iPhone." Well, apparently Apple is thinking of doing just that. Though instead of using a virtual click wheel, Apple is proposing touch based sense lines that could control the devices functions like sound or any other menu items that you would traditionally find on a click wheel based menu system. The difference is that you'd be able to find your most valued menu items without scrolling and in one lightning quick click.
