It’s easy to poke fun at Microsoft when it comes up with its own knockoff version of an Apple’s long-awaited iWatch, iPad, iPhone, iPod, or pretty much any other innovation in the company’s history. However, when it comes up with its own ideas, it kind of makes us think that “thinking different” isn’t really in Microsoft’s DNA at all.

According to a recently filed patent application, Redmond’s latest Apple slaying idea is for something Apple hasn’t expressed any apparent interest in: a mood changing/health device in the form of a robotic butterfly. Yes, really.

Future Apple devices may be able to dynamically modify user interface elements, security levels, and other types of behavior based on location, according to a new patent application published Thursday.

Referred to as “Location-sensitive security levels and setting profiles based on detected location,” Apple’s application describes a setup in which both the hardware and software of your iPhone, iPad, and whatever other mobile devices Apple releases in future can seamlessly work together to automatically adjust various UI and device behavior settings.

With so much focus on its iOS devices, it’s easy to forget that Apple is constantly innovating for its Mac product line as well.

On Thursday, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals the company’s investigations into possible future Mac Keyboards which support gesture controls, as well as in-key pictograms, symbols, and glyphs.

SAN FRANCISCO — In a city obsessed with parking, app developers who came up with disruptive ideas to turn vacant spots into cash found their apps targeted by local officials. But the crackdown might be unnecessary: So far, the sharing economy seems to stall when it comes to auctioning off parking spots.

Cult of Mac offices are in the Mission District, epicenter of the parking crunch, so we took MonkeyParking and Sweetch — two of the “predatory” apps named in a cease-and-desist letter from San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera — for a spin.

Based on the massive number of hires they’ve made in the field as of late, it’s no mystery that Apple is interested in biometrics and biosensors. However three new patent applications published Thursday shed a bit more light on what Apple has up its sleeve, and make us feel even more excited about the possibility of an iWatch (and future iPhones) later this year.

Samsung’s scattershot business plan of trying to come out with its own version of whatever tech other companies are working on meant that it was only ever going to be so long before Samsung announced its entry into the virtual reality headset market.

Sure enough, last month we reported that the South Korean company is in the process of developing VR technology that will work alongside Galaxy devices — and how it is desperate to get the product to market before Facebook and Sony launch their Oculus Rift and Project Morpheus headsets. Now it seems that Samsung’s plans are taking shape, as the company has filed an application to trademark the name “Gear VR.”

Nest, which is now owned by Google, pioneered the idea of a smart thermostat. Now several years later, Honeywell has a Nest competitor that might actually do well in the consumer market.

Called Lyric, Honeywell’s new WiFi-connected thermostat costs $279 and will be available at a Lowe’s near you by August. While it may be too late for the Lyric to compete with the Nest, Honeywell sees it as just the beginning of its entry into the world of the the smart, always-connected home. And being a launch partner with Apple’s HomeKit in iOS 8 could mean that more people buy the Lyric over Nest in the months to come.

A new patent published Tuesday suggests that the iWatch may be able to able to detect if the user is lifting a weightlifting bar, and count and display the recorded repetitions. Metrics related to intervals between movements could be compared against previous sessions and displayed on an iOS device so that the user could track their progress over multiple sessions.

Interestingly the patent — which was filed in 2012 — specifically mentions a shoe-based sensor, similar to fitness-tracking sneakers like the Nike Hyperdunk+ basketball tracking shoes. In the years since then, however, Apple has pulled back on patent references to shoe wear-out sensors and unitless measurements, but kept the body-bar sensing system and associated watch readout. Other possible devices named in the patent include potential future generation iPods and iPhones.

While iOS 8 has seen tons of improvements — from FaceTime call waiting to the ability to purchase iTunes content using Siri — there’s one area that hasn’t seen a major overhaul: Apple Maps.

Although the new version of Maps does now offer vector maps and other improvements in China, as well as a feature designed to give owners the ability to add more indoor positioning data, this was reportedly nowhere near what Apple originally had planned for the next version of its mobile OS.

Over the past year we’ve reported on various map-related patents which seemed like they would land on iOS before long, related to innovations such as user customizable maps. There’s also been plenty of talk regarding major under-the-hood changes to improve map accuracy; adding more points of interest; overhauling labels to make locations like airports, highways and parks easier to find; changing the overall map interface to make it cleaner; and adding public transit directions.

So why didn’t anything like this happen? According to sources the problems may have been the result of internal politics and generally chaotic project management.

More pictures of what is allegedly a shell for the upcoming iPhone 6 have surfaced, and if legitimate, they show the exterior design of the device in more detail than we’ve seen before.

There have been rumors, leaked design schematics, and more recently a single shot of another shell that was purportedly for the unreleased device. These new photos show not only the back, but the side of the shell in detail. It looks like Apple is making some design changes to accommodate a larger display.