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Apple Patent Could Bring New Type of File Sharing to iPhone & iPad

10 points by tathagatadg 15y ago

flipbrad 15y ago
Not sure I'd want to be editing documents on my iPad on the subway and be inadvertently flicking / pouring my data to my neighbours every time the train hits a bump in the rails...
- bradleyland 15y ago
  Don't worry. Apple patent filings are not always a good predictor of future features or products.
  - Derbasti 15y ago
    r/not always/seldomly/
losethos 15y ago
So... they're trying to make things intuitive? Eventually, folks have to come to term with the fact that these are analogies. I think you're making it worse. There is no substitute for understanding a directory tree, for example. Deal with it and quite gunking things up for everybody else.
raganwald 15y ago
So, no implementation, just someone dreaming up something that could be done, maybe, who knows, and patenting it. This is ridiculous. Apple itself has proven that the devil is in the details, that getting the design right is the herd part. If thre's something that needs protection, it should be the myriad of little details involved in making this vague idea workable, not the vague idea.
karl_nerd 15y ago
Can someone please explain this to me – i can fully understand how a technical solution to do this could be patentable – but how can the very interaction design part be patentable? It seems like this is an "idea patent" rather than an "i invented something and spent a long time developing it and now i need to be able to protect my investment patent".
praptak 15y ago
While it could bring new way of file sharing to iPhone & iPad, it will prevent it on competing devices. That's what patents do.
wollw 15y ago
This reminds me of some of the stuff shown in the Wii U E3 video. Throwing shurikens and playing golf with the new controller for example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e3qaPg_keg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e3qaPg_keg
jerryr 15y ago
The Siftables guys demoed a pouring interface for color mixing, among other things: http://www.ted.com/talks/david_merrill_demos_siftables_the_smart_blocks.html http://www.ted.com/talks/david_merrill_demos_siftables_the_s... Not sure if that feature made it into the commercially available version, but they definitely still have the proximity features, which are pretty cool: https://www.sifteo.com https://www.sifteo.com
ethank 15y ago
This just in: Apple protects proprietary IP with a patent and a blog confuses that for a product roadmap.

10 points by tathagatadg 15y ago

Not sure I'd want to be editing documents on my iPad on the subway and be inadvertently flicking / pouring my data to my neighbours every time the train hits a bump in the rails...

bradleyland 15y ago
Don't worry. Apple patent filings are not always a good predictor of future features or products.
- Derbasti 15y ago
  r/not always/seldomly/

losethos 15y ago

So... they're trying to make things intuitive? Eventually, folks have to come to term with the fact that these are analogies. I think you're making it worse. There is no substitute for understanding a directory tree, for example. Deal with it and quite gunking things up for everybody else.

raganwald 15y ago

So, no implementation, just someone dreaming up something that could be done, maybe, who knows, and patenting it. This is ridiculous. Apple itself has proven that the devil is in the details, that getting the design right is the herd part. If thre's something that needs protection, it should be the myriad of little details involved in making this vague idea workable, not the vague idea.

karl_nerd 15y ago

Can someone please explain this to me – i can fully understand how a technical solution to do this could be patentable – but how can the very interaction design part be patentable? It seems like this is an "idea patent" rather than an "i invented something and spent a long time developing it and now i need to be able to protect my investment patent".

praptak 15y ago

While it could bring new way of file sharing to iPhone & iPad, it will prevent it on competing devices. That's what patents do.

wollw 15y ago

This reminds me of some of the stuff shown in the Wii U E3 video. Throwing shurikens and playing golf with the new controller for example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e3qaPg_keg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e3qaPg_keg

jerryr 15y ago

The Siftables guys demoed a pouring interface for color mixing, among other things: http://www.ted.com/talks/david_merrill_demos_siftables_the_smart_blocks.html http://www.ted.com/talks/david_merrill_demos_siftables_the_s... Not sure if that feature made it into the commercially available version, but they definitely still have the proximity features, which are pretty cool: https://www.sifteo.com https://www.sifteo.com

ethank 15y ago

This just in: Apple protects proprietary IP with a patent and a blog confuses that for a product roadmap.