Apple iPhone Integration and a Media Device? (Patents)
A search of the European Patent Office reveals a patent application from Apple entitled "Database programs for handheld devices" that was published in Feb 2006.
As advertised, the patent describes techniques for providing access to databases from handheld devices. The application, however, incidentally points out that "the remote handheld device can, for example, be a wireless phone which uses a telecom server to communicate with the database program".
Apple describes limitations in current implementations in that "the user may use a remote wireless phone to find a phone number stored in a database, but there is no convenient way for the user to place a call to that phone number." The patent application describes methods for accessing remote databases and hyperlinking relevant data (urls, phone numbers etc...) to perform tasks conveniently -- such as dialing.
The application shows images of a cell phone interface demonstrating the interactions.
While not mentioned specifically in the patent application, Apple could presumably use this method to offer live-synced Address Book functionality between a user's cell phone and their .Mac account. Apple already offers Address Book syncing between Mac OS X Tiger and .Mac.
While Apple has previously said that they did not feel they can add much value to current cell phones, it appears Apple could offer the same tight device-computer-operating system integration that has been so successful for the iPod.
Several analysts expect an Apple branded phone to appear in the next 12 months.
Meanwhile, another Apple patent application published on March 7, 2006 is entitled "Media device" and appears to date back to 2004. The description simply states "We claim the ornamental design for a media device, substantially as shown and described." This may simply represent a design for the recently released iPod nano or 5G iPod, but no images are associated with the online patent application. [Update: the images from the U.S. counterpart to this patent are of the 4G iPod]
Popular Stories
Apple is set to unveil iOS 18 during its WWDC keynote on June 10, so the software update is a little over six weeks away from being announced. Below, we recap rumored features and changes planned for the iPhone with iOS 18. iOS 18 will reportedly be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history, with new ChatGPT-inspired generative AI features, a more customizable Home Screen, and much more....
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
There are widespread reports of Apple users being locked out of their Apple ID overnight for no apparent reason, requiring a password reset before they can log in again. Users say the sudden inexplicable Apple ID sign-out is occurring across multiple devices. When they attempt to sign in again they are locked out of their account and asked to reset their password in order to regain access. ...
Best Buy is discounting a collection of M3 MacBook Pro computers today, this time focusing on the 14-inch version of the laptop. Every deal in this sale requires you to have a My Best Buy Plus or Total membership, although non-members can still get solid second-best prices on these MacBook Pro models. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Best Buy. When you click a link and make a...
Apple used to regularly increase the base memory of its Macs up until 2011, the same year Tim Cook was appointed CEO, charts posted on Mastodon by David Schaub show. Earlier this year, Schaub generated two charts: One showing the base memory capacities of Apple's all-in-one Macs from 1984 onwards, and a second depicting Apple's consumer laptop base RAM from 1999 onwards. Both charts were...