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Patents Communications Apple

Apple Satellite Plans May Extend Beyond Emergencies, Suggests New Patent (9to5mac.com) 28

Posted by BeauHD from the what-to-expect dept.
A new patent granted to Apple suggests the company could use satellite communications for more than just getting help in an emergency. 9to5Mac reports: Emergency SOS via Satellite was one of the headline features of September's Apple event -- so much so that the Far Out event name referenced it. The service launched in the US and Canada last month, and was yesterday extended to the UK, France, Germany, and Ireland. More countries will follow. A patent granted on the same day the service expanded to more countries suggests that Apple satellite plans may extend beyond text, and beyond emergency use.

Patently Apple spotted it: "Satellite communications data conveyed by transceivers #28 and antenna radiators #30 may include media data (e.g., streaming video, television data, satellite radio data, etc.), voice data (e.g., telephone voice data), internet data, and/or any other desired data." Apple has currently committed $450M to support the satellite communications feature, a reasonably sizeable amount of money even by Apple standards for a service that will be of use to a tiny fraction of iPhone owners. But if it's the start of something more, then the investment could look rather modest.
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Apple Satellite Plans May Extend Beyond Emergencies, Suggests New Patent More

Apple Satellite Plans May Extend Beyond Emergencies, Suggests New Patent

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  • 1942 (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    So now they're tracking us 24/7/365 (7/24/365 for Americans) for both emergencies *and* marketing? That's some scary shit!

    • Also porn.
      • It makes sense to use satellites for communication to hand heads. Their coverage is literally everywhere with a view of the sky. We only need to augment the service for urban and indoor areas. Micro cell repeaters and indoor Wi-Fi on terrestrial networks can be repurposed so the utilization is economical based on where you are and what you are asking the network to do. Exciting times. It will be very cool when your phone just works like normal when on mile marker 13 on a fishing trip

    • So now they're tracking us 24/7/365 (7/24/365 for Americans) ...

      It's 24/7/365 over here, too.

  • I think Apple is trying to patent Starlink!

  • You didn't think they'd try to turn it into a subscription service?

  • add to much then emergency calls must be free even with no sim / no account / blacklisted phone / locked phone.

    • I'm okay with this.

      You trigger an EPIRB, and they rescue you first, and worry about what it cost later.

    • emergency calls must be free even with no sim / no account / blacklisted phone / locked phone

      Careful. I'm sure that you must be able to make emergency calls under most circumstances. For example, you have a heart attack, I should be able to use YOUR phone to call emergency services when I don't carry a phone myself. Without your passcode etc. and without money in my pocket. But it's quite possible that they might be allowed to charge you later.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        Careful. I'm sure that you must be able to make emergency calls under most circumstances. For example, you have a heart attack, I should be able to use YOUR phone to call emergency services when I don't carry a phone myself. Without your passcode etc. and without money in my pocket. But it's quite possible that they might be allowed to charge you later.

        Generally speaking, most people who find themselves in that situation probably don't really care what the cost in the end was, they're much happier to have b

  • How can that even be patentable? I realized the patent office was a joke decades back the first time we applied for a patent. First they took an ungodly amount of time and when they did respond it was with "uh, this is too long to read, split it up into two patents." And no there weren't an insane amount of claims .. I think it was like 30 or something like that and most of those were simply referencing the first few claims (you know the patent language BS I am talking about -- "method of claim 1 wherein th

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by gnasher719 ( 869701 )
      The most important part for a company like Apple is that if they apply for a patent, and it is rejected as unpatentable, then nobody else can get the patent and interfere with Apple's business.

      Otherwise, someone at Apple has an idea how to improve their phones, and then someone claims they have a patent. Happens often enough.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        The most important part for a company like Apple is that if they apply for a patent, and it is rejected as unpatentable, then nobody else can get the patent and interfere with Apple's business.

        Former patent attorney here. Completely false. Just because you apply for and don't get a patent, doesn't prevent anyone else from getting one. Apple's patent may be denied for many reasons other than basic patentability, such as disclosure bars, insufficient advancement over prior art, inadequate technical descr

    • First they took an ungodly amount of time and when they did respond it was with "uh, this is too long to read, split it up into two patents."

      This is actually a highly desirable attribute of the patent system for militant companies. Once you have a patent application underway you can begin to use it to scare off all the competition, even if your application is absurdly rubbish. You can add a billion claims that you know would never be granted, but until the patent office has gone through and invalidated them you can use still them to intimidate your competition, or more likely, their distributors and retailers.

      The longer the whole thing gets stuc

  • With all the headaches of dealing with Linux-based single-board computers, I kinda wish Apple would come out with one that developers could integrate into their own products that would include special iOS-based tools for interacting with the embedded device from a phone or iPad.

  • My guess: Apple's end-goal is to provide a phone/data subscription directly to consumers.

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