“On February 28, 2013, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals technology that could support a future iPhone with satellite capabilities,” Jack Purcher reports for Patently Apple.
“Satellite phones or satphones are popular on expeditions into remote areas where terrestrial cellular service is unavailable,” Purcher reports. “Apple’s patent filing states that the use of satellites for personal and business communications is an important technique in global communication networks.”
Purcher reports, “Satellite communication systems provide obvious benefits that allow users to transmit and receive communication signals over a large footprint. Apple’s invention advantageously provides a method and system for achieving a link improvement in a diverse communication system such as a satellite-based system.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
Perhaps this is the thing Steve Jobs figured out – Apple could launch some DBS satellites and compete directly against DirecTV and Dish. The content providers would then have to negotiate with Apple for access to content.
AppleSat I will be the new hot bird.
Perhaps, having your own satellites to broadcast media and app updates from could be a big deal. Cheaper devices in 3D world location that can’t connect are useless. At that point, connection is the issue not the price. I would love to have that ability on cruises too and when huge storms take out the cell tower systems.
Yes, the mothership could deploy the sats or perhaps a moon based maglev.
Are these one of those supersecret scrambled satellite iPhones that I see the members of The Following using?
Heck, I can see this as a way to kill the carriers. AAPL has enough money to put their own satellites in space and build their own network. Screw the carriers and yank their iPhones out of their stores with an Apple iPhone month to month plan and no contracts.
Then come out with the TV thing and start killing off the cable and other satellite companies.
Screw’em, screw’em all!
Will happen.
The satellites will empower the spaceship.
I hope this is an element of a larger scheme. Even with a big, very precisely aimed parabolic antenna it take a minimum of 1 watt for the uplink radio. That’s a lot of juice. But the satellite could easily beam down and be received with not too big of an antenna in the iPhone. Since the downlink is the big bandwidth user, seems like ripe territory for low bandwidth uplinks paired with high bandwidth downlinks. Where are your data caps now Verizon and ATT?
Apple television is about content delivery and not transmission methods.
Think big. Imagine if apple launched their own satellites? They certainly have the money and the market-share to pull it off. This should scare the pants out of the phone companies.
… and it will be called iSat.
lol
It ain’t cheep keeping those birds in the air!
I can definitely envision Apple launching a satellite that has new advanced technology that will support 4K video and will compete with Hughes net, DirecTV and Dish Network. If you cannot beat them at their own game then go around them or in this case go over and do your own thing.