Patentseed

Apple is advancing the usability of gestures with this patent application (12/199,532).  The idea is that you want to operate your iPhone/iPod without having to look at it.  For example, it may be strapped around your arm while you’re working out.  The application refers to this as “sightless navigation.”  Perhaps you want to skip to the next song?  Or fast forward?  Well, typically, you’d have to look at the screen, orient it rightside up, and perform your gesture.  Apple wants to do away with that and allow you to perform these gestures without looking at or worrying about the orientation of the device.   You can achieve this through a variety of touch and swipe patterns.  For example, if you begin a press and go clockwise, it can know to fast forward.  This can be done regardless or orientation of the device.  Similarly, you can press and move your finger counterclockwise to rewind.  The patent application also describes what other patterns are possible using multi-touch, hold gesture, etc.

Find yourself with not enough hands?  How about all those times you’ve been typing a Word document, two hands on the keyboard, and you need to switch over to Excel to see some data.  Taking that right hand off the keyboard and onto the mouse is such a distraction, especially when your fingers are in the zone and going at 80 words per minute.  Enter Apple patent application 11/956,275 to save the day.  Rather than using a mouse, you can just move your head to switch from one window to the next.  Move your head right to quickly go from Word to Excel.  Move your head to the left to go back to Word.  Imagine that!  All without letting those 8 fingers become unglued from the “asdf” - “jkl;” keys!  Follow the link to read the full patent application to learn how the motion sensing technology works.

Apple is always trying to come up with more intuitive ways to view things.  We’re not video or image buffs, so we couldn’t say how novel or not Apple’s patent application 11/956,286 is.  We can say that their approach, while graphically intensive, is a rather intuitive way of viewing frames of a video within a three-dimensional space.  Though a sharper color image would help, the image from the patent application does a good job of visualizing the invention.  As you can see from the image, “the video frames are displayed concurrently along a timeline in a three-dimensional display environment.”

Patent application 12/002,148 filed in Dec 14, 2007 reveals several ways of using a “remote wand” to control the “operations of [an] electronic device.”  To make things more clear, let’s rename the “remote wand” with iPhone and “electronic device” with Apple TV.   We already know that the “Remote” application installed on an iPhone will allow you to control iTunes and Apple TV.  However, this patent application reveals a completely different methodology for using your iPhone as a remote control.  Rather than selecting the media on your iPhone, you purely use the iPhone as an input device for selecting on the big screen.  Several methods are described, including the use of the iPhone’s acceleraometers, gyroscopes, and motion detection components.  This would indeed allow you to use the iPhone as a wand.  Methods for controlling a cursor on the big screen using the iPhone’s touchscreen is also included (as seen in the second image).

Interestingly, the claims of the patent application are all limted to controlling a “screen saver.”  Presumably, using your iPhone as a “remote wand” is not novel and/or unobvious enough to be claimed independently.

Update: Looks like several other patent application also filed on Dec 14, 2007 by Apple share the same specification as 12/002,148 mentioned above.  Each of course has its own set of claims.  This is not surprising as the Specifications is rather lengthy and there may be more than one invention in there.   Apparently, Apple isn’t limiting claims to a “screen saver.”  See all the fun details of the 12/002,197, 12/002,063, 12/002,198, and 12/002,053 claims by following the links.

Aluminum unibody is so April 2009.  It’s time to move on to carbon fiber, but not the rice rocket carbon fiber of old, which according to Apple gives a “tired, unexciting look.”  Apple’s patent application 11/932,244 teaches how to make a carbon fiber structure with an “improved cosmetic surface.”  Let’s see if this construction finds its way to the MacBook or the iPhone first.  For those of you who get a kick out of “scrim”, “resin”, and “sheets of prepreg”, you’ve got some fine patent reading ahead of you.

Apple’s 11/925,679 patent application aims at improving and reducing the cost of capacitive touchscreens.  Current capacitive touchscreens are manufactured using a two-surface sensor panel.  Through the technology described in this patent application, Apple will be able to produce capacitive touchscreens using only one surface.  The most important advantage is the reduction in manufacturing cost, which could mean a significantly cheaper iPhone.  Apple also claims that using only one surface will reduce light loss from the display.  We’ll just keep our fingers crossed that this eventually means a $0 iPhone with contract.