Sixteen new Apple patents, from CoverFlow to iDVD

The USPTO published a whole slew of new patent applications from Apple today, covering everything from iChat to some CoverFlow animation. Patently Apple has the whole writeup as usual. Probably the most interesting thing among them is a "virtual keyboard for media players" that uses a modified QWERTY keyboard, with more than one letter on each key. That doesn't seem like an idea that Apple will ever use, but maybe that was one of the prototypes that was originally being worked on for the iPhone.

There are also some more technical patents for iChat video encoding and error adjustments on touchscreens, as well as overall patents for the MacBook Air SuperDrive and iDVD. It seems like the USPTO is just cleaning out Apple's old patents -- most of these were filed back in 2007. Now, maybe they can set the legal patent team up on newer accomplishments.

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Source: http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2010/04/apple-wi…

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The USPTO published a whole slew of new patent applications from Apple today, covering everything from iChat to some CoverFlow animation....

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amutti

"that uses a modified QWERTY keyboard, with more than one letter on each key"

I didn't completly understand what they were getting at reading the patent, but that probably covers the ".com" key and the "." where multiple options are available if you hold the key down??

April 08 2010 at 8:48 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

2 replies to amutti's comment

ObamaPacman

Another example is holding e gives different variations of it.

April 08 2010 at 9:13 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Nick

Oy, HTC has this same type of thing in their Android IME bundled with SenseUI. :(

April 08 2010 at 10:27 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

ObamaPacman

Apple does have multiple keys available, it's just that the additional keys are not shown.

For example, hold down .com to get other common variations.

April 08 2010 at 8:45 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply