Apple Explores Wireless Sharing
A recent Apple patent application entitled "Media Data Exchange, Transfer, or Delivery for Portable Electronic Devices" is generating some buzz.
The patent application was filed on September 1, 2006 and addresses methods for mobile devices to wirelessly discover others in the local vicinity and transmit data from one another. Examples of data shared include video, music, games, photos, playlists, and slideshows. They do make special note of restricted sharing for certain media that may have "limited-use rights".
Electronista notes that the method could be used for something more useful than just one-to-one transfers:
Users could even create a random or semi-random effect through this method by telling the device or server on the opposite end to randomly load the device with content, similar to the way the iPod shuffle's AutoFill creates a new mix of songs through USB.
Some comparisons are being made to Microsoft's Zune product which allows Zune-to-Zune wireless sharing, though Zune's launch was approximately 2 months following the filing of this patent application. As well, historically, Apple has explored similar auto-discovery techniques (over RF at the time) with early prototypes of the Apple Newton (pre-1993).
Popular Stories
During its WWDC 2026 keynote on Monday, Apple briefly showed a slide with hundreds of new features and enhancements coming across iOS 27, macOS 27 Golden Gate, watchOS 27, tvOS 27, and visionOS 27. All of the software updates are currently available as developer betas, and they are expected to be released to all users in September.
We already highlighted some of the key new features from the ...
Apple's annual WWDC developers conference is drawing to a close, but there is still a lot to look forward to in the second half of the year.
Apple is expected to release at least 15 more products later this year. Now that the more intelligent and personal version of Siri has finally arrived in beta, a full two years after Apple first previewed it at WWDC 2024, we should begin to see some new ...
If you pay for extra iCloud storage on your iPhone, beyond the 5GB included for free, you might receive two more perks on iOS 27 at no additional cost.
First, Apple said there will be daily usage limits for some of the new and enhanced Apple Intelligence features on iOS 27, including image generation. However, the company noted that "increased access" is available with "most" iCloud+ storage ...
