Recently, chatter has increased about the possibility of an ‘iPhone nano’ (a smaller lighter more-iPod-than-iPhone phone). I have no informer in a Taiwanese factory, nor saw one over someone’s shoulder at an airport neither do I have a friend who is a waiter at a restaurant who played with one. But, what I do [...]

A number of Apple patents have been released this week. Some of them deal with further refinement of touchpads (probably most of them represent versions which won’t make the light of day). One interesting example is a scroll touchpad for an iPhone that looks a lot like a present iPod. The innovation Apple suggests appears to resemble an old rotary telephone more than anything (everything old is new again!). Also, Apple seems to have got around to putting a patent application for the iChat interface - one version they show shows a three-way text chat. Another application has a description of a local area broadcast system for the iPhone (or similar product), allowing location/person specific information/applications to be sent to anyone in range. Imagine being in an Apple store/Ikea and being able to just click off on you iPhone the products you wanted and pay by credit card and then just pick them up at the counter. Mmmmh, we’ll see.

An Apple patient application suggests Apple might be extending the technology behind the iPhone’s touch sensitive screen to a new generation of mice. Users would be able to perform gestures, such as pinching or a virtual scroll wheel, as well as the normal range of left, right mouse clicks and scrolling. One embodiment of the touch-sensing mouse would use a light source within the mouse and an optically transmissive mouse top surface and internal sensors to determine the positions of the users fingers etc.

Apple is considering over forms of input for its iPod/iPhone range. This pat application recently released describes using the rear surface of an iPod/iPhone as the input surface. Touching this surface would change the UI on the front surface of the device. The touch-sensitive surface would be configured that differences in pressure could be used [...]

Graphical user interface for computers having variable size icons #20070079255
Apple has filed for a patent for variably sized icons (within a single Finder window). Apple states in the application that the icons in Finder windows could be set to vary in size based on a number of criteria; the number of items in a [...]

Steve Jobs, CEO Apple and Eric Nicoli, CEO of EMI Group announce that you can buy DRM-free and higher quality (buying albums is the same price for the higher quality).
These undeniable improvements in the music come at a price: Apple and EMI will charge 30% more for the higher quality DRM-free music. EMI doesn’t seem [...]

This patent suggests the use of RFID tags in hardware that exchange the vital information to allow setup of new hardware on a wireless network. You bring your new iTV up in close proximity to your wireless base station (which has a RFID receiver) and they exchange information from the RFID tag.
A common problem with [...]

iPhone Dock - Which way is up?

One of the loudest gasps at the iPhone’s announcement was when Steve Jobs tilted the iPhone and the display changed auto-magically from portrait to landscape. landscape orientation is better for some uses- watching video, viewing landscape pictures and cover flow. Docks tend to force the iPod/iPhone/iTablet into one [...]

It seems every person and their dog/cat likes to give their two cents when it comes to what might make the bill at Macworld. So, if you can’t beat them, join them.
Hrmpf’s Predictions

PDA/iPod/remote control with wifi and optional telephony
wifi allows iChat audio chat/IMing from any wifi hotspot
allows exchange between iPods (crippled by DRM no doubt)
interacts [...]

Apple is out and proud about Resolution Independent User Interface Design
it would be beneficial to provide a means to specify the design of a graphical user interface object independent of its display resolution. Such a description may advantageously be used by a rendering module to display the designed object at substantially any resolution.
A patent application [...]