You’re driving home late one night with your friend following. You lose him at a red light and, realizing he doesn’t have your address, need to tell him where to go.
You ask Siri to share your route with your friend, and voila, he’s able to follow your location as you drive with the Maps app.
Such is the kind of scenario that could arise in the future, thanks to a new Apple patent.
Apple’s magical Force Touch trackpad — which uses haptic technology to make the new MacBook trackpad feel like it’s clicking, even when it’s not — was unveiled at the company’s recent “Spring Forward” event.
But a patent application published today suggests that this is merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the interest in haptic technology on the part of Tim Cook and co. The application describes a whole virtual keyboard for the iMac, meaning that users could type onto a flat glass or metallic plate, but would still be able to feel the individual keys.
Chalk one up for Cupertino! A federal jury in Texas (where else?) said on Monday that Apple didn’t infringe on five wireless tech patents belonging to the patent licensing company Conversant Intellectual Property Management Inc.
The verdict comes as a relief, since it follows one month on from a jury in the same Texas courthouse ordering Apple to pay out $532.9 million for iTunes-related patent infringement: one of the biggest examples of damages awarded in patent history.
Apple has been ordered to shell out $532.9 million to a patent troll after apparently infringing on intellectual property with iTunes features related to data storage and managing access through payment systems.
The fee was awarded by a Texas court, and was positioned between the $852 million Smartflash was seeking in damages and the $4.5 million Apple had argued for.
Steve Jobs famously hated styluses — but as of late there’s been more and more to suggest that the forthcoming 12-inch+ iPad Pro could sport an optional, Apple-created pen to help act as an input device.Today, there’s a bit more fuel to the fire in the form of a newly published Apple patent application, describing an “active stylus” concept.
And, you know what, the more I hear, the more I’m convinced this could wipe away the bad memories of the dumb styluses of old.
What is it with Apple and the gaming-related patents as of late?
Just weeks after the publishing of an Apple patent showing a concealed gaming joystick capable of being hidden in future iPhones, today the U.S. Patent and Trademarks Office has revealed another Apple invention related to a snap-on gaming controller for iOS devices.
As with the joystick patent, the idea here is to allow gamers to fully capitalize on the present golden age of iOS gaming, without having to block parts of the screen using their fingers for multitouch controls.
As we use our iOS devices for more and more tasks in daily life, a big question facing Apple is exactly how to squeeze more functionality out of limited screen real estate. The iPhone 6 Plus and the rumored 12-inch iPad Pro offer the simplest answer to this conundrum: make the devices bigger.
But a new patent application published today offers another potential way around the problem, without compromising the gorgeous one-button simplicity of Apple’s mobile devices.
Filed in August 2014, the “Configurable Input Device” patent application describes how Apple may consider incorporating sensor regions for user input on the back of iPads, thereby opening up a whole new way of using your favorite apps.
I’ve written on numerous occasions before about how we’re currently living through a golden age of iOS games, and apparently Apple agrees with me.
According to a new patent application published today, Apple may be investigating the possibility of building in a miniature joystick inside the Home button of future iOS devices.
Read on to find out how it could work.
Ericsson’s former CEO has gone on the record as saying his company should have taken the iPhone more seriously when it arrived back in 2007. Today, everyone takes the iPhone seriously — and there are the lawsuits to prove it.
In the latest of these, Apple and Ericsson are suing each other after failing to come to an agreement about the pricing of Ericsson-owned patents used by Apple.
Apple is claiming Ericsson is chasing excessive royalty rates, while Ericsson is holding out for more cash.
And when you’re talking about a handset like the iPhone 6, which sold upwards of 10 million units in its first weekend, who can blame it for trying?
The so-called Bendgate incident might have done Apple no favors in 2014, but according to a new patent published today, Cupertino is far from done when it comes to flexible iPhones — this time, purposely so.
Apple’s newly-granted patent covers an invention related to flexible housing for future iOS devices. As described, these devices would be capable of being bent or even folded with no damage to the internal components.
To pull this off, Apple would likely ditch the milled aluminium used in current iPhones for more easily deformable materials such as soft plastics and fiber composites able to withstand repeated flexing.
Steve Jobs was a visionary, a futurist and a business genius … but he was also an inventor with more than 458 patents to his name. What better way to spend this holiday weekend than getting yourself up to speed with the inventions of one of the most prolific patenters of the 20th century?
Apple may build smoke detectors into future Macs and iOS devices, according to a patent application published Thursday.
As users move toward the smart home, courtesy of services like Apple’s HomeKit, the idea is that Macs, iPhones and iPads could intelligently monitor for signs of a fire and trigger various mechanisms accordingly.
This could mean sending users a text or email alerting them of the danger, calling 911 for emergency assistance, or even activating fire suppression equipment.
A patent published today shows that Apple is investigating new halogen free, flame-retardant materials for use in its devices.
According to Apple, only about 12% of plastics currently contain flame retardants. An increased use of such materials would improve the safety of electrical wiring and electronic devices, and help reduce the number of fires caused by electronic devices as a result.
Halogenated flame retardants have been found to be effective in many plastics, but these are increasingly regulated as a result of environmental concerns. Since sustainability is a big topic for Apple, the company therefore wanted to discover a material that would possess similar fire-retardant qualities, while also not being damaging to the environment.
Tuesday’s patent describes a material with these qualities, that also produces only negligible amounts of toxic substances while burning. As per Apple, the material could be used in devices including the iMac, MacBook Pro, iPhone, and iPad.
Your iPhone can make payments, control your smart home, and track your health — and soon it might be able to control your car, as well.
A new patent published Thursday describes a way of using the iPhone’s geo-location capabilities to intelligently monitor and control certain car functions, based on “geofences.”
Likely pairing with Apple’s vehicle-based OS, CarPlay, the patent notes how your car could be tracked in relation to your iPhone — with appropriate signals, sent using Bluetooth LE, to execute functions like locking your car and arming its alarm when you are a certain distance from the vehicle.
Tim Cook may have laughed at Topeka Capital Markets analyst Brian White’s “iRing” prediction, but someone at Microsoft was clearly scratching their chin, intrigued at the idea.
That’s based on a recently published patent application from Microsoft showing how the company has investigated a finger ring as a possible future wearable device. Microsoft’s impressive-sounding wireless ring could be used as an input device either to control a cursor on a mobile device such as a tablet, smartphone, or even a head-up display like Google Glass.
A U.S. judge has ruled in Apple’s favor in litigation filed against the company by Canadian patent licensing company WiLan, reports Reuters, after the judge issued a public statement on the case Wednesday afternoon.
Apple was being sued for supposedly violating two LTE patents held by WiLan, but a summary judgement from Judge Dana Sabraw ruled that the patents were invalid and note infringed.
Apple is investigating touch-sensitive holographic displays for future Macs and iOS devices, according to a new patent published today.
As described, the patent would emulate the current touch-based interface for iPhones and tablets, only using near-field proximity in place of physical touch.
Call alerts are all well and good but — even on the Apple Watch, when they’re being delivered directly to your wrist — it’s likely that there will be situations when users won’t be aware of them, and could miss important calls or alerts as a result.
Apple’s trying to crack that problem with a new patent published Tuesday, describing a “Self adapting alert device” that would vary the volume or style of user notifications to your iPhone or Apple Watch depending on where you are at the time.
Today, in what is being described as a “historic” event, Apple will take the stage in Cupertino and unveil at least three new products: the 4.7-inch iPhone 6, the 5.5-inch iPhone 6+, and (quite possibly) the iWatch, Apple’s revolutionary wearable.
But imagine if Apple had even more in store for us. Like what? Oh, say, this Apple patent for an Occulus Rift style virtual reality headset!
Whether or not the upcoming iPhone 6 will sport a sapphire crystal display or not is something we’ll have to wait to find out for sure, but the ultra-strong material used by many high end watch manufacturers is certainly something Apple has spent a lot of time investigating.
Some of those investigations have led to a new patent application published today, revealing how Apple plans a technique for strengthening glass by using an “ion implanting” method as opposed to the kind of chemical coatings used for, say, Corning’s Gorilla Glass.
According to the application, the reason for this is that the kind of traditional chemical strengthening techniques used on glass screens might not be effective when used on materials like sapphire.
Apple has been awarded a new patent for adding moving radial menus to both Macs and iOS devices.
The use of radial menus would give Apple an alternative to the pull-down menus currently used in most applications — allowing context-specific menus and submenus to be created at optimal positions close to a user’s mouse cursor or, in the case of an iPhone or iPad, their finger.
Have you ever cracked a Lightning connector, or — perish the thought — your iPhone itself when roughly yanking it out of a dock? Apple’s working on the problem. Cupertino’s patent department just filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a sort of super dock that will make docking your smartphone safer and easier than ever.
Judge Lucy Koh has denied Apple’s second attempt at banning certain Samsung phones. After Apple won its second major patent infringement case against Samsung earlier this year, it requested that a permanent injunction be placed on nine Samsung devices in the U.S.
Just like when Apple was denied a sales ban after its 2011 landmark victory against Samsung, Koh has not granted the second request. This time around, the ruling signals that Apple and Samsung’s court disputes are indeed settling down.
We’re all so used to using our iPhones as our primary cameras these days that it’s difficult to remember what it was like in the dark days before the device came along.
Today the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published a new series of Apple-related patents, including an historic 2008 filing for an Apple camera. While the patent covers both a standalone camera (something Apple hasn’t done since the QuickTake camera launched in 1994) and a camera integrated into a PDA, it is likely that this is the patent which covers the original iPhone.
Apple and Samsung have decided to drop all patent litigation in courts outside of the U.S. The decision ends cases that are open in Australia, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Netherlands, the U.K., France, and Italy.
Disputes over intellectual property related to the iPhone and Samsung phones will continue stateside, and neither party has agreed to a licensing arrangement of any kind.
