New Apple patents describe anti-tampering and accelerometer navigation technology

John Brownlee ()

patent-091210-3Apple’s patents only rarely give us the first look at new products in Cupertino’s pipeline, but they can still be wholesome brain fodder to chew over, as they at least give us a glimpse at the current problems the company is trying to solve. Let’s mull over, then, Apple’s two latest patents, each as different from each other as it can be.

The first patent Apple has applied for is a “technology” that would allow their Geniuses to know when a device has been “compromised” by being opened. It’s not much of a technology: it’s just a little sticker affixed between an electronics component and the chassis’ removable lid. Think of it like Apple’s own iteration of that venerable classic of anatomic technology, the hymen: Open your laptop or iPhone and the sticker will tear in half, thus letting any future delvers know that your device has been sullied.

Clearly, the aim here is to give Apple an excuse to void warranties on modified machines, which is understandable if not entirely welcome.

The second patent that Apple has applied for is more interesting to the end user: it’s a scheme to broaden the role of the accelerometer in its iPod line of devices. You can, of course, already shake the Nano to trigger Shuffle mode, but the new patent suggests that an iPod could also be shaken to play or pause a song, or flicked to scroll through songs or scrobble.

DON'T MISS
Apple patents describe new iPod interface improvements

It makes sense that Apple would be exploring this. My guess is we’ll see the death of the iPod Classic soon enough, with Apple trying to push people towards the Touch if they have larger music collections. Could the Nano also become more Touch-like? Apple wouldn’t want to fit them with expensive touchscreens, necessarily, but they might want to ditch the click wheel in favor of a display that makes up the entire front of the device… in which case, accelerometer controls are a no-brainer.

4 comments »

About the author

John BrownleeJohn Brownlee is news editor here at Cult of Mac, and has also written about a lot of things for a lot of different places, including Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, AMC, Geek and the Consumerist. He lives in Cambridge with his charming inamorata and a tiny budgerigar punningly christened after Nabokov's most famous pervert. You can follow him here on Twitter.

(sorry, you need Javascript to see this e-mail address)| Read more posts by .

Posted in Apple, News |

  • GGeek

    As a member of the hymen-bearing population, I object to your use of it in this metaphor, particularly the implication that having had sex means one is “sullied.” I understand the attempt at humor, but there are plenty of non-gendered similes to choose from in this case. Like, say, the more relevant comparison to regular old warranty stickers on electronics.

    /feminism 101

  • DGF

    There seems to be a contest among COM’s writers to come up with the least-relevant unfunny sexual reference. So far, I’d say this one ties with “Edward Tufte would cream his pants” for the worst.

  • Chris Grayson

    Several years ago I was working at this ad agency. It was at the end of the day and most of our team wast loitering in the hall near our project manager’s office. She was speaking to her assistant about an email she had forwarded her about a media spec that had changed, and she wanted her to update an XL file with the new information. The conversation went like this:

    PM: I forwarded you the email.

    Asst: Oh… I’ve already shut down. Do you need it tonight or can I take care of it in the morning?

    PM: Don’t worry about it. I’ll just take care of it.

    Asst: Oh… if you need it tonight I can restart my machine.

    PM: Don’t worry about it. By the time you get it up I’ll already be done.

    Her assistant and I laughed so hard we could barely breath. For at least a month it became the catch phrase of all the women on our team, “By the time you get it up I’ll already be done!”

    Last summer the whole, “That’s what she said.” meme was in overdrive at one of my client’s offices. One couldn’t attend a business meeting there without one or another of the women at the table blurting out “That’s’ what she said,” turning every-other innocuous phrase into an innuendo, always in some reference to a man’s anatomy, sexual prowess or lack thereof… met with much giggling and the occasional high-five.

    I’m so glad the women I work with in the business world are not as uptight as GGeek and DGF.

    I confess, I laughed out loud at the “hymen” analogy. My next thought was that instead of “sullied,” I would have said, “deflowered.”

    Thanks for the Apple patent update.

  • DGF

    Hi, Chris.

    Uptight? No. I like a good risque joke as much as anyone (maybe more). We just disagree on what constitutes “good.” COM is setting an unfortunately low bar.

    Regards.

    DGF