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A Schizoid Mobile Device from Apple? |
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 MacDailyNews reported earlier today that Apple has filed a patent for "Multiple personas for mobile devices". While this could mean that Apple is developing schizophrenic cell phones, most people will probably connect it with the recently rumored PAL.
What is PAL you ask? iKen reported on it earlier this month (bless his happy camping soul). Bascially, an article over at TopTechTips had pictures of a very Apple-like box as well as some of the writing on the box. The screenshots have since been removed (supposedly) at the request of Apple legal, but are available on MacRumors forums. A portion of the text claims that PAL is a:
"small wireless device with a touch sensitive screen, which can remotely login to your desktop Mac. It is suitable for surfing the web on the move. When your Mac is out of range, Pal logs in to your .Mac account, to provide limited functionality". It goes on to say "It has a pen based input method, using Inkwell, but it is not positioned as a Tablet PC since it does not have an internal hard drive. It's not a Mac replacement, it's a Mac companion."
PAL rang fake to a lot of people (including me), but not after reading about this patent Apple applied for. As a matter of fact, I was preparing to write an article debunking the PAL before I heard about the patent. I had my debunking gloves on and everything, and was gearing up to debunk the hell outta that bitch.
But after risking my own sanity and actually READING the fine points of the patent, I think the PAL is a product that may actually see the light of day. I fell asleep several times, but was able to glean a few bits of information from it.
Those bits are the facts that it will have a stylus, will be a "hand-held computer", and will function as a "computerized notepad".
It also mentions the word "persona" so much that it makes your ears bleed. I've cleaned up the text for you so your ears don't bleed...you can thank me later.
Basically you can "login" via the PAL (it may not be the PAL, but let's call it that for now) in what sounds like a very Mac OS X-like manner. Once logged in, "subsequent transactions conducted with the computer system employ the parameter values of the current persona". The PAL stores "user signatures, user e-mail addresses, user credit card information, user phone numbers, user pager numbers, user bank account information, dates of relevance to a user, affiliates of relevance to a user, user organizations, etc.", which bascially boils down to transactions over the 'Net.
The next few pieces of info suggest it may have built-in cell phone capabilities, or at least VoIP (for the acronym-omically challenged, that's Voice Over IP, or Internet Phones).
The patent tells of a "worksite" that can specify "certain worksite parameters such as phone dialing prefixes, printer addresses, return addresses, etc. which are specific to a location at which a computer system is operated." The worksite will then correlate with certain "City" information to retrieve location info such as area code.
That's probably more than enough legal-ese for any Man or Woman to handle in a day, but if you survived, I think you have to admit that the patent application does give the PAL at least a tiny shred of credence.
That said, back in March MacWhispers reported on a possible mini-tablet enclosure. They're still a pretty new site and the track record is so-so, but for what it's worth, they said that a "mini-tablet" device had just gone into mass production at that time. (SpyMac has a nice mockup by the way)
Now the patent, from what limited patent experience I have, looks like it was originally filed on November 26, 2002 - which would have given Apple enough time have working units in production by now.
So is the PAL hoax or real? We may have to wait quite a while to find out, but you never know, Apple may throw us a curveball and debut it at WWDC. If nothing else you know those tablet theories will be flying hot and heavy!
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June 16 2003, 8:40 PM EDT, by
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Comments:
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| stickman67 |
6/16/03, 11:14 PM EDT |
I forgot to take my tablet this morning. I had a little blackout. When I came to the living room was full of blood and fur. Now I can't find my kitty, Fluffkin. Do you think Apple's tablet will work better than the ones I take now? And what's this scrap of ligament stuck in my teeth?
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| Zack |
6/17/03, 3:22 AM EDT |
So that's why Inkwell comes installed on my mac!
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| tboss |
6/17/03, 11:35 AM EDT |
And why does the device in the patent look like a Newton? Apple makes many patents with inventions they do not use. it's to support their lawyers.
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| Jonahan |
6/18/03, 8:02 AM EDT |
Apple should develop some type of tablet for Windows users. Except it'd be like the 'red pill' and Windows users would realize the world they're living in has been constructed for them as a prison for their minds (the Matrixsoft? lol). And their cash is siphoned off to MS to power the company. Wow, there's lots of great correlations here...Gill Bates is the Artchitect, Steve Ballmer is Agent Smith.... This is almost kinda scary! ;)
tboss: I don't think it looked like a Newton, but something much more advanced. Yes, I'm sure there's tons of patents Apple doesn't use, but the timing on this one, some of the info in it, combined with whisperings from around the Mac Web have added up to make me think this thing just might be real.
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Deep Thoughts |
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I think a cute movie idea would be about a parrot who is raised by eagles. It would be cute because the parrot can't seem to act like an eagle. After a while, though, to keep the movie from getting boring, maybe put in some pornography. Later, we see the happy parrot flying along, acting like an eagle. He see two parrots below and starts to attack, but it's his parents. Then, some more pornography.
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