What’s Next for the iPhone - Video Conferencing/Recording and more according to Apple Patents

By Aaron Besson at 2 February, 2009, 10:56 am

It’s getting pretty obvious that Apple may be looking to update the iPhone by June/July this year with something that will probably out perform the current iPhone 3G and its older sibling the iPhone 2G. With recent patents getting approval and getting allot of buzz as the tech blogs and magazines are getting wind of the images and info from Apples patent, it feels allot like last year when we were sifting through the rumors, reports and patents trying to figure out what the iPhone 3G would have looked like and what new features it would have been sporting.

Last year I blogged about the Apple patents and what I thought then would make it into the iPhone 3G, but alas, it was not to be. My dreams of video conferencing, video recording, TV signal In/Out, copy and paste, weather/stock/calendar widgets, embedded flash, updated camera with auto focus etc, were all shattered when the iPhone 3G came out and sported not much more than some hardware improvements, refurbished case, 3G and GPS. But it seems as though I may have had that dream maybe a bit too early, or expected it to come true too soon.

With Apple officially cited as a licensee of Imagination Technologies’ latest PowerVR mobile graphics technology, it allows Apple to now build a ’system on a chip’ using ARM processor cores and incorporating new PowerVR video and graphics processing core designs developed by Imagination Technologies. This will give the iPhone the much needed and improved processing power to allow multi-tasking and background processing, video recording and video conference calls along with imporved camera and a updated OS to include all these new features and and tie them all seamlessly into the existing apps and system.

Having a look again at the Apple Patent it is clear that Apple is going to be including video recording and video conferencing into the iPhone at sometime. This will require some serious hardware upgrades, besides obviously adding a camera to the front of the device and possibly replacing and updating the camera in the back of the iPhone. With the new ARM PowerVR processors, Apple can easily achieve this.

Adding the ability to make video calls to other iPhones, Macs and Windows machines over 3G and Wifi networks would make the iPhone the ultimate communications device and clearly position the Apple iPhone ahead of RIM Blackberry, Google Android Phones, the Palm Pre and upcoming offerings from Nokia, Dell, Acer and other.

Here is a look at one of the patent diagrams and description.

[0112]The device 100 may also include one or more optical sensors 164. FIGS. 1A and 1B show an optical sensor coupled to an optical sensor controller 158 in I/O subsystem 106. The optical sensor 164 may include charge-coupled device (CCD) or complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) phototransistors. The optical sensor 164 receives light from the environment, projected through one or more lens, and converts the light to data representing an image. In conjunction with an imaging module 143 (also called a camera module), the optical sensor 164 may capture still images or video. In some embodiments, an optical sensor is located on the back of the device 100, opposite the touch screen display 112 on the front of the device, so that the touch screen display may be used as a viewfinder for either still and/or video image acquisition. In some embodiments, an optical sensor is located on the front of the device so that the user’s image may be obtained for videoconferencing while the user views the other video conference participants on the touch screen display. In some embodiments, the position of the optical sensor 164 can be changed by the user (e.g., by rotating the lens and the sensor in the device housing) so that a single optical sensor 164 may be used along with the touch screen display for both video conferencing and still and/or video image acquisition.

From there Apple could integrate some of the Mac software and technology that was recently introduced with the iLife 09 update. iPhoto, iMovie and iChat can all be scaled to work on the iPhone OS. iPhoto to edit and tag photos, maybe even add Faces and Events to help you better organize your photos. iMovie will be needed to edit your video recordings and add titles. iChat will be needed for video conferencing and as an instant messenger.

Here we see more Camera Application Controls, and shown are new features Record and Timer

“[0329]FIG. 10 illustrates an exemplary user interface for a camera in accordance with some embodiments. In some embodiments, user interface 1000 includes the following elements, or a subset or superset thereof: [0330]Viewfinder 1002; [0331]Camera roll 1004 that manages images and/or videos taken with the camera; [0332]Shutter 1006 for taking still images; [0333]Record button 1008 for starting and stopping video recording; [0334]Timer 1010 for taking an image after a predefined time delay; and [0335]Image 1012 that appears (e.g., via the animation illustrated schematically in FIG. 10) to be added to camera roll 1004 when it is obtained.

[0336]In some embodiments, the orientation of the camera in the shutter icon 1006 rotates as the device 100 is rotated between portrait and landscape orientations”

Apple is also clearly looking at adding widgets similar to those found on Leopard OS X on the Mac. We have been seeing these on the iPhone from the jailbreaked community for a while and the developers are making serious headway with what is possible and now available. Intelliscreen and Kate were the first to introduce LockScreen widgets that gave you calendar alerts, call, sms and mail notices and rss weather/news feeds.

But Apple applied for the pateent on these ideas long before they were ever possible on the iPhone, and Apple will probably implement it in the best way. Using it’s already existing apps and API’s Apple can easily create Weather, Calendar, SMS and Call Widgets that can be moved around and arranged on the lockscreen and can easily be setup using the existing settings and native apps on the iPhone.

[0092]The device supports a variety of applications, such as one or more of the following: a telephone application, a video conferencing application, an e-mail application, an instant messaging application, a blogging application, a photo management application, a digital camera application, a digital video camera application, a web browsing application, a digital music player application, and/or a digital video player application.

But what about the little things we all request and need? Copy and Paste, SMS forwarding, Stereo Bluetooth and Themes. Apple and Adobe recently announced that they are working on Flash for the iPhone and I am sure Apple is looking to address the other issues. The missing features are the reason allot of people recently jailbreak their iPhones, besides unlocking the device. If Apple can add the missing functionality that the jailbreaking community provides it may get be able to satisfy allot of iPhone owners.