The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has awarded Apple patent number 7,479,949 covering key aspects of the iPhone's multi-touch user interface.

The filing, with 358 pages of drawings and Steve Jobs as its first author, comprehensively describes the iPhone operating system's interface, and how hardware on the phone interprets finger movements and taps as instructions for the software. The filing makes liberal use of the word "heuristics" -- a trial-and-error-based engineering technique that reduces the calculations necessary to arrive at a solution to a problem. Heuristics may not always be correct, but good heuristics result in something at least close to the right answer.

This patent, combined with Tim Cook's statement about protecting Apple's intellectual property during their first-quarter conference call, is a shot across the bow for Palm and their new Pre smartphone. Cook said that Apple would aggressively defend their IP, and a patent covering that IP is an important shield for Apple.

AppleInsider also notes that the patent covers features not seen on the iPhone, but interestingly are critical features of the Palm Pre. For example, Apple's patent mentions a touch-sensitive area that does not display visual output: a dead-ringer for the Pre's gesture area, separate from the touch screen.

The Pre uses multi-touch gestures as part of its webOS interface. If the technologies in Palm's devices are found to infringe on Apple's patents, Palm will either have to change the way the device works, or license the technology from Apple. The likelihood of Apple granting Palm a license is slim to none.

[Via AppleInsider.]

We all know that Steve Jobs will eventually leave Apple, and Apple's executive team has a responsibility to draft a succession plan to help minimize the turmoil when that day comes. To figure out what Apple might do, we can look to the past for other examples.

Ford Motor Company was founded in 1903 by Henry Ford. In 1918, at the age of 55, Henry handed the presidency of the company to his son Edsel. When Edsel died in 1943, Henry came back to Ford Motor Company ill, "mentally inconsistent, suspicious, and generally no longer fit" for the job.

Most of the board didn't want him to be president. Even with no official title, he'd been in de facto control of the company since Edsel took over. Nevertheless, the board elected him (rather than cross him), and he served until the end of the second World War. Gravely ill, he turned control of the company over to his grandson, Henry Ford II, in 1945. Henry Ford died two years later.

Steve Jobs has four children, the oldest of whom is Lisa Brennan-Jobs, a 30-year-old journalist. None have publicly expressed any desire to run Apple.

There are plenty of recipe applications for the Mac, and at first glance SousChef is like most of the others. However, it does have some fine-tuning and refinement that sets it apart from the pack. The thing I like most about SousChef is the ability to use your Mac to view recipes while cooking, without ever having to waste paper printing each individual recipe. This is accomplished through a Front Row-esque interface that lists your ingredients, and the cooking instructions -- It will even read your instructions to you while you are cooking. You can control the speech through a heads-up display that appears when you mouse over the bottom portion of your screen. You can also control this "10-foot mode" with your Apple or Keyspan remote.

SousChef interacts with an optional online database of other SC users to allow you to share your culinary creations. Each time you enter a new recipe, it can be sent to the database where others can look it up and create the same dishes you do. If you have a collection of secret family recipes, you can turn off sharing. It would be nice if this were available for each recipe, instead of affecting your entire library.

You can search through your recipes by ingredient; this allows you to find only the recipes that you can execute using the items you have on hand, without a trip to the store. You can search using multiple ingredients, and if you find an ingredient that you don't have, you don't need to make another shopping run -- just use SousChef's built-in substitutions. The application ships with several substitution suggestions, but you can also add your own in the preferences.



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Everyone knows that Apple's Intel powered portable lineup gets hot, but this is insane! An enterprising fellow figured out that it would be possible to actually fry an egg on the bottom of his black MacBook. Granted, it probably took something like 3 times as long than if he had used a stove, but thats obviously not the point. For bonus points, keep your coffee warm by placing it on top of your MacBook power adapter.

While obviously a stab at Apple for releasing such hot machines, I think its important to understand the fact that Apple has no control over how hots Intel's processors run. I'm sure the engineers in Cupertino do their best to make the machines run as cool as possible, but there are some things that even Ive and his team can't do.

Just as a bit of an update, since this piece has been picked up all over the net: This isnt really serious. Although it is theoretically possible to get egg protiens to congeal from the heat of a MacBook, the guy posted the story as a joke. That is all.

[via UneasySilence]