11–20 of 57 posts
A friend of mine works for an Apple store and says people still come in asking for the square iPod Nano and TikTok watchband, even though Apple stopped selling the square (7th generation) Nano some 6 months ago.
Since pebble started shipping and already got nice coverage and feedback from the community it sounds reasonable that apple might work on it's "i" equivalent.
Considering this patent was filed in mid-2011 and is almost certainly claiming an earlier invention date, I think you may have your order of events backwards.
From claim 1 it appears that the screen will be of variable size depending on the "appendage" on which the watch is worn. I can't wait to see a keynote where the speaker will be wearing the iWatch on his thigh.
It sounds like they're making an iSlapBracelet to me. That means the whole surface would potentially be a screen with just the part facing you being active. I kind of wonder where else would be appropriate to wear it other than on your wrist, given that it explicitly mentions that (Geordi LaForge style visor perhaps?)
Since pebble started shipping and already got nice coverage and feedback from the community it sounds reasonable that apple might work on it's "i" equivalent.
Apple's patent application was filed on August 17, 2011. Pebble's Kickstarter campaign started on April 11, 2012. From the description of the patent application it's clear that this thing is nothing like a Pebble or a watch. It's a slap bracelet covered with a flexible touchscreen. What's more, the patent application describes the device's battery being charged by ambient light and kinetic energy. That's pretty wild.
From claim 1 it appears that the screen will be of variable size depending on the "appendage" on which the watch is worn. I can't wait to see a keynote where the speaker will be wearing the iWatch on his thigh.
I think it's more just about covering the discrepancy between "child's wrist" and "adult's wrist". i.e. making sure the display doesn't try to render to a fixed size, when substantial portions of the 'band' may overlap. I doubt they'd ship enough material to actually attach to a leg. And hopefully they're not just shipping an iSlapBracelet: a wrist computer needs to stay in place. Not spin around your wrist freely. G…
Also, being a child of the 80s, I remember slap bracelets quite well, and in my experience, they fit quite snug and didn't move around much at all.
But, lets keep in mind Apple has some patents for some pretty radical ideas floating around and reading too much into patents is like reading chicken entrails.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Considering this patent was filed in mid-2011 and is almost certainly claiming an earlier invention date, I think you may have your order of events backwards.
The company behind Pebble has been working on smartwatches for a lot longer than Pebble - well before 2011. There was even a launched product - inPulse - before Pebble.
If you want to generalize it to "Apple is doing something similar to what other people had previously done" that's a completely different argument.
but it looks like they're intending to use the flexible screen tech that's been demo'd by Samsung recently
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...
before the inevitable complaining about who innovated what first, I'd like to say that it looks like Samsung has the screen nailed down, but Apple is going to get the device concept figured out (which will then probably be launched off of by tons of companies not the least of which will be Samsung). I'd say Samsung's strategy might be "why waste R&D when you can get Apple to do it for you?" but it's obvious that this core tech is the result of unbelievable amounts of R&D dollars.
It doesn't take a genius to see where tech is heading. Even 3M had the same ideas: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCZz4jFok_o
Nowadays it's all patent the obvious and sue all competitors.
Since pebble started shipping and already got nice coverage and feedback from the community it sounds reasonable that apple might work on it's "i" equivalent.
Apple's patent application was filed on August 17, 2011. Pebble's Kickstarter campaign started on April 11, 2012. From the description of the patent application it's clear that this thing is nothing like a Pebble or a watch. It's a slap bracelet covered with a flexible touchscreen. What's more, the patent application describes the device's battery being charged by ambient light and kinetic energy. That's pretty wild.
Fairly common, automatic mechanical watches already use kinetic, but were we to say "But those aren't electronic" then you could always look at something like the Seiko Premier ( http://www.seiko.co.uk/products/seiko/c/premier/m/snp005p1_s... )
And for ambient light charging, you have Citizen and their Eco-Drive range ( http://www.citizenwatch.com/en-us/watches/collections/citize... ) and Casio's G-shock ( http://www.gshock.com/technology/solar/ )
I enjoy the fact that my current watch is ambient light powered, syncs with atomic clocks each night via radio... and therefore never needs a battery or charging, and is so damn accurate that I can glance at my watch when some event happens on my NTP sync'd server and the entry in the log file is precisely when the time on my watch said it would be.
Anyhow... those power sources should be irrelevant to the patent... they've existed for years by numerous players in the watch market.