hrmpf.com

Supercharged Cursors in Snow Leopard

hrmpf — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:22:37 +0000

A new patent application released today shows Apple’s potential plans for user interface tweaking in Snow Leopard, the next version of OS X. The new patent shows cursors providing much more information than a spinning beach ball of death. The cursor will show lots of information about the file or link (previews, file permissions, virus [...]

Non-linear Web History Coming to Safari

hrmpf — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:48:23 +0000

Apple is constantly refining the UI for Safari and they have too with more competition coming from Chrome and the constantly evolving Firefox. The linear history associated with Web Browsers has always been an annoyance for me — I don’t browse in a straight line, I graze in a haphazard manner and then always pine [...]

Flash/windows media and new lockscreen for the iPhone in Apple patent application

hrmpf — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:15:38 +0000

A mega Apple iPhone patent application has just released by the USPTO (Jobs et al. 20080174570: 361 pages!). It contains a detailed description of most of the iPhone’s user interface. There are two interesting features which haven’t been seen before in the extant iPhone — support for Flash and Window Media and a useful iPhone [...]

Another Apple Wii-like controller patent kills strays

hrmpf — Thu, 29 May 2008 10:59:16 +0000

Remote control systems that can distinguish stray light sources Further support for the contention that Apple is building a Wii-like controller is found in the USPTO patent applications. Apple has applied for a patent for a refinement of a Wii-like controller which uses a number of means to stop interference with the system by reflection, [...]

Apple Predicts Phone Signal Strength

hrmpf — Thu, 29 May 2008 10:42:56 +0000

An interesting patent application from Apple is for a method of informing a user that their phone/device may lose signal before it happens (i.e. if you’re driving along a road it will say “you will lose signal in 15 seconds, allowing youthe driver to pull off the road so you can finish your conversation or [...]

Apple Bluetooth Device Finder

hrmpf — Thu, 29 May 2008 10:12:37 +0000

Apple Finder of Lost Objects Are you like me — do you have more electronic gadgets than you can keep track of? where is that wireless mouse? where is the BlueTooth headpiece for the phone? Where is the damn phone? where is my GPS etc etc etc. Apple engineers have been staying up nights worrying [...]

Is iPhone Nano Still in the Works?

hrmpf — Sun, 25 May 2008 13:37:46 +0000

Apple’s original patent applications for the iPhone showed a product that resembled an iPod Nano more than the iPhone we know today (I’ll call it the iPhone Nano but apparently the project was called the P1). Conversely, the iPhone seems to have been born out of an Apple touch screen tablet concept which, at least [...]

Apple Creating Head Mounted Displays?

hrmpf — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 08:44:15 +0000

A patent application has recently surfaced submitted by Apple to the USPTO dealing with how best to implement a head mounted display- is the future of the iPhone/Mac OS wearable computing or is it just blue-sky thinking. The listed inventor, John Tang, is part of the Apple Industrial Design Group and worked on the eMate as well as other projects. Here are some of the details of the patent application and you decide:

Something in the air? — MacBookAir Inductive charging, RFID tagging?

hrmpf — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 15:24:22 +0000

MacBookAir (c)AppleInsider.com The banners are up at MacWorld — and they’re saying “2008 There’s something in the air” Hrmpf! These banners will obviously make sense come Tuesday but until then we will have to speculate wildly about their meaning. One thing I think is that it doesn’t seem to point to a new Apple SubNoteBook — [...]

Digital Camera Sensor Cleaning with Magic Tape

hrmpf — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 16:57:45 +0000

I deserve some sort of prize for having the dirtiest sensor on a digital camera… I’ve had my D70 for about 4 years and have taken lens off in dust storms (or at least that’s how the sensor looked). I was despairing and thinking I’d have to fork out some cash for a professional cleaning. [...]