Verizon and Motorola’s upcoming Droid handset is getting a lot of press, here, there, everywhere, and one of the negative points that’s come up — in relation to the iPhone — is the Droid’s lack of multi-touch gestures like pinch-to-zoom. (TiPb mentioned it a couple days ago as well).

Some might complain about Verizon nickel-and-diming users by charging an extra $15/month for Exchange support, or that given Verizon’s CDMA technology the Droid can’t multitask a phone call and a data connection (so if, for example, you’re using the new Google Maps Navigator and a need to talk on the phone at the same time, you’re only as good as your last cache). Others are honing in on the Android app space limitations, or just the limited apps (NSFW). But what makes multi-touch so intriguing is that it’s a bit of a mystery as to why the Droid doesn’t support it. Of course, the G1 didn’t support it either, but Android 2.0 is supposed to contain the API’s to do it, and the non-Verizon (GSM, for sale outside the US) version — called the Motorola Milestone seems to do it, if not smoothly (yet?).

Apple’s massive multi-touch patent portfolio is cited as a reason, both now for the Droid and then for the T-Mobile G1. Either Google, while CEO Eric Schmidt was still on the board, agreed not to violate them, or fears litigating them. So, they build in the functionality and let 3rd parties take advantage — and the risk that goes with it — if they so choose.

But why then does the Palm Pre have multi-touch gesture support on Sprint in the US? Wouldn’t the same patents apply? Sure. However, patents are like nukes. They can be deadly unless the guy you’re pointing yours at is pointing equally deadly ones back at you. As both TiPb and PreCentral.net have posted for a while — and Palm has explicitly stated — Palm has a heckuva mobile patent arsenal.

Blustering about lawsuits aside, Apple suing Palm (or vice versa) brings mutually assured patent destruction down on the both of them. While Apple is arguably filthy rich and Palm pauper poor, they might not want the expense or the hassle given Palm’s current market position. Verizon and Google, however, is another matter, especially since Google has been in the mobile space nowhere near as long as Palm, and likely doesn’t have the same type of core mobile patent portfolio in their pocket to assure the same type of stalemate.

At the end of the day, only the top executives (and their lawyers) at Apple, Google, and Palm know for sure, but that’s our guess.

It’s a shame, of course, because the iPhone’s multi-touch gestures are natural to the point where they should arguably be considered default for all capacitive touch screen devices. Apple settled “look and feel” lawsuits with Microsoft over the windows/mouse/pointer interface over a decade ago. They likely consider multi-touch a similar competitive advantages, however, and Steve Jobs said as much at Macworld 2007 when he introduced Apple’s implementation of it:

“And boy, have we patented it.”

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Regarding Apple Multi-touch Patents, iPhone, Verizon Droid, and Palm Pre

We all know Steve Jobs sculpted the iPhone from unicorn tears through a sheer act of singular will and hutzpah — along with buying FingerWorks and winning a glove-full of multi-touch patents of their own along the way (which may or may not still result in several rounds of pugilism with Palm’s Pre).

But who knew they might not have done enough? Elan Microelectronics of Taiwan, that’s who. Elan claims the iPhone, iPod touch, and Macbooks — basically everything featuring multi-touch functionality — is in violation of their patents, and they’ve filed suit in Apple’s home turf of San Francisco to prove it. (No word yet of litigation friendly Texas will sue over not being the venue of choice…)

A previous lawsuit from Elan against a company called Synaptics, who counter-sued resulted in a dismissal and cross-licensing agreement. This time? We’re calling Apple wins by (frenzied) tap-out due to guillotine choke near the end of the second round.

Anyone got the popcorn, hot dogs, and spicy drink?

[NY Times via iLounge]

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Apple Sued Over Multi-Touch Patents

We know the score. Apple now holds a veritable smorgasbord of multi-touch patents, some dating way back before the iPhone, and some coming from their 2005 acquisition of a company called Fingerworks, and the innovative talents of Wayne Westerman and John Elias. But from whence did they draw their inspiration? MacRumors pulls the relevant quote from a University of Delware article:

“I had an ergonomic problem and I paired it with a motivation,” Westerman said of the early inspiration. “I’d always felt that playing the piano was so much more graceful and expressive than using a computer keyboard, and I thought how great it would be if I pulled some of that expression from the piano to the computer experience.”

Having suffered plenty of joint/wrist injuries, I know from personal experience how difficult it can be to type with traditional, hard smartphone keyboards. I abandoned my old Treo 680 when it was too physically painful to push in the tiny keys anymore. The iPhone, however, is nothing but a pleasure, so the above comments truly resonate with me.

It’s also interesting to note that history aside, Apple is also looking towards the future, with job listings for multi-touch ninja “gesture algorithm” wizards.

So anyone else going to jump on the piano and try to figure out what iPhone 3.0 might hold for us?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Origins of iPhone Multi-Touch… the Piano?!

Another week, another iPhone lawsuit or three. If it isn’t American’s complaining about AT&T’s 3G “network” (so bad, it’s made (Giga)Om Malik abandon his iPhone), it’s owners of white iPhones complaining about cracks in their plastic casings (which is effecting other, non-iPhones as well, making us suspect someone spike a plastic factory somewhere in China). This time, however, it’s a patent dispute, and it’s not Apple going after Palm, but Picsel Technologies taking it to Apple. According to Apple Insider:

By using particular techniques to speed up panning and zooming for images and other documents, Apple is effectively borrowing Picsel’s own acceleration to make the iPhone work as smoothly as it does, the complaint reads. [..]Unlike many of these suits, the plaintiff already has major customers for its software that primarily include Japanese firms like KDDI and Sharp but also include American phone manufacturers such as Motorola and Palm.

So even though Apple now owns multi-touch(ish), they may not be allowed to show it working on screen? Gotta love patent poker…

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Apple Being Sued for iPhone Screen Rendering Acceleration

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Phone different Podcast Episode 33

What was once but an administrative possibility has become the most sublime of legal certainties: Apple has been granted the multi-touch patents.

Credited to the one, Steve Jobs, and the many, Scott Forstall and the iPhone team, the news patents are simultaneously as wide ranging as they are specifically crafted towards the implementation of one or many fingers interacting on the screen in a mobile device, with the most subtle of heuristic interpretations.

Apropos the heretofore mentioned anomaly; ergo Palm Pre’s exacting duplication of the iPhone’s multi-touch gestures and behavioral interactions and Apple’s deliberately obscure threats in their direction, these new patents provide a single, potentially catastrophic result of a singular equation: Apple has grounds to sue.

Vis a vis Palm’s own far-reaching patent portfolio in the mobile space: these remain a perplexing, perhaps equation changing variable. Through one door, a cross licensing agreement. Through the other, years if not decades of litigation.

In sum, the situation remains predictably uncertain.

(Thanks to David, Chad, and everyone who sent this in!)

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Multi-Touch Patents, You Belong to Apple Now

Patent filings sometimes clue you in to the direction a company is headed with their devices. Sure, some are crazy and others are ridiculous, but you can get a general sense of what the company is trying to accomplish in those stencil-like drawings and comic-like blurbs.

Well, Apple has filed a patent that strongly hints toward developing an add-on/dongle/hub/dock-type device that will accept AM, FM, HD, or satellite radio along with cable TV, satellite TV, antenna, or IPTV. The multiple connecting devices, as shown in the patent filing, could range from being a dock, a stereo, or even a computer.

What makes this Apple patent unique is its ability to “tag” information about the current movie, TV show, or song, allowing you to save the information presumably to let iTunes develop a list of movies, shows, and music you might be interested in.

Honestly, I’m lukewarm about this “media extender” device coming into fruition partly because I would hate to have a dongle attached to my iPhone and more importantly, can’t imagine Apple pushing media that isn’t sold through their iTunes pipeline.

Either way, this patent filing makes for good conversation. What do you think?

ReadVia

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TV on the iPhone? Patent Says Yes!

Patent-mania running wild from Apple is nothing new, though these recent filings do seem a tad focused on enabling new form factors, don’t they? To go along with the iFlip and iPhone Nano, and the iSlider, comes a little something that just might allow for an iStylus:

Another interesting possibility raised is the use of both capacitance (finger tip) and resistance (fingernail) to provide secondary functionality in future touch screens. [...] Apple suggests the addition of pressure sensitivity to provide additional functionality. For example, touching an item in a list with your fingertip would select it, while pressing it with your fingernail (or otherwise shielded finger or stylus) could bring up a pop-up menu (see picture above).

It’s suggested that the patent could make things like text selection and — wait for it — cut and paste much easier to multi-touch, with the resistance input being akin to a right-button action on a mouse. Of course, we all know how much Steve Jobs loves buttons, never mind his audible YUCK! at the concept of a stylus.

However, resistance touch could be a blessing to those with long nails, who have complained that they have trouble getting the fleshy part of their finger to properly make contact with the current capacitance sensors. No matter how outdated (–cough–Treo 600–cough–) the technology is.

But never mind what I think, are you hankering to get your iStylus on? And if so, why so?

Read

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Patent Watch: Say Hello to… iStylus?

Your plane’s landing in the middle of nowhere. Scratch that. WAY past the middle of nowhere — that little state on the other coast you’ve never been to, where the people have funny accents and McDonald’s has menu items you’ve never seen before.

The pilot flips off the seatbelt light, you whip out your iPhone to make a quick call, and before the bars come up you’re greeted with a screen that lists off all the local service providers complete with up-to-the-minute rate information. You flick-scroll to the cheapest one, tap to select, the bars pop up, the network springs to life, and you start your call.

What? Your iPhone doesn’t do that? You don’t get to pick your service provider? You don’t get to choose just-in-time data rates? You’re stuck with AT&T 24/7?!

Yeah. That’s because you’re in the real world, not the world of what might-have-been. Not the world Apple could have created had they gone ahead with a little patent just recently brought to public attention…

Tale of Two Telcos

If you make a cell phone you have to have a telco behind it to provide voice, data, SMS, and other network services. In the United States, there are currently two types of telco providers.

1. Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), which include the likes of AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile. These monoliths own their own bands of frequency and have pushed out their own hardware infrastructures to support them. They have the towers, the cables, and the oligopoly.
2. Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs), which include (or have included) Virgin, Helio, AMP’d, and other discount, niche, localize, or otherwise boutique operations.

Dealing with the Devil

Apple, of course, ultimately chose option one: a locked-in, carrier-exclusive agreement with AT&T (then Cingular). For an estimated 5 years from initial launch, anyone who wants an iPhone in the United States has to sign a 2-year service contract with AT&T or be unable to activate their device, much less make calls or use EDGE data.

This agreement gave Apple carrier-cooperation in the form of Visual Voicemail and low-cost unlimited data plans. It also gave them revenue sharing with estimates as high as $15 per user per month ($360 over the course of the 2 year contract, on top of hardware and potential retail sales profits).

What Might Have Been

Even though Apple went with option one, a recent patent application shows they had a plan for option two ready as well — and in typical Apple fashion, it’s as slick as it is revolutionary.

Right now, when you pick up your iPhone, slide to unlock, and tap the Stocks widget, you get relatively up-to-date (within 20 min.) quotes. Right now, when you pick up your iPhone, slide to unlock, and tap the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store, you get a list of songs you can flick-scroll through and tap to purchase through your iTunes account. Come June, you’ll be able to do similar with the App Store.

In a different world, similar functionality would have existed via an “iCarrier” Store. Unlike traditional MVNOs, however, the patent filing indicates Apple may not have bought minutes in bulk from an MNO and simply resold them to iPhone users. Rather, they proposed a model combining the previously mentioned Stocks widget’s near realtime price quoting with the iTunes Wi-Fi Store’s (or App Store’s) near instant transactional processing and purchasing system.

With this system a (presumably WebObjects-based) server would store up-to-date rate information for all regional, affiliated networks and then select whichever provided the best option at the moment, or — in an even more utopian service — allow the end-user to select for themselves as simply and easily as buying a Tune or downloading an App.

Apple Insider quotes Apple’s iPod chief, Anthony Fadell:

“Bids can be received from multiple network operators for rates at which communication services using each network operator can be obtained. Preferences among the network operators can be determined using the received bids, and the preferences are used to select the network operator.”

“Preferences may be further based on a location of the mobile device, the quality of service offered by the network operator, and/or type of communication. Bids from multiple network operators for rate information relating to rates at which communication services using each network operator can be obtained and the rate information can be sent to the mobile device for use in selecting the network operator.”

And What Still Could Be

A system as described in the Apple patent could benefit consumers in many ways. Ars Technica sums them up as follows:

To borrow from AT&T’s adage, it would mean more bars in more places at lower prices. Apple would also clearly benefit by the greatly expanded coverage of the iPhone, and the end to sale-stunting exclusivity agreements. Unfortunately, telecommunications companies like AT&T would be forced to actually compete for customers on price every minute of every day. One need look no further than what happened to the record companies when they relinquished control of pricing to the iTunes Store to see how that looks from the perspective of a faceless multinational corporation. Of course, the technical and business issues associated with becoming an MVNO would also be a hurdle for Apple, but getting the telcos to go along with this idea is a stone wall a hundred feet high.

Sound like a dream come true? Probably not for the oligopolistic telcos desperate not to become “dumb pipes” and gorged on over-priced service and subscription revenue ($0.20 to send 140 character text message?! Do the math for a megabyte at that rate and then shout “clear” and reach for the paddles!) For them it probably sounds like a nightmare.

Differences in technology in some countries, like the United States where MSOs are split between GSM and CDMA (which would require a broader spectrum radio), and lack of competition in others, such as Canada where there is but a single GSM provider, could limit these benefits in the short term. And as we said, Apple is currently locked-in to telco deals in the US, UK, France, Germany, and other countries. But Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook himself recently said:

“We’re not married to any business model. What we’re married to is shipping the best phones in the world.”

Indeed.

Personally, I would love to see this system manifest for disruptive reasons alone. How does the idea grab you?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Patents Pondered: An AT&T-less iPhone World?