“When Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the MacBook Pro laptop this week, he took a few minutes to highlight a nifty little feature called the MagSafe Connector,” Scott Ard blogs for CNET. “noted that the MagSafe is ‘patent pending,’ and to get a patent you generally have to be first to the market. The patent office looks for earlier, similar inventions, known as ‘prior art.’ Or in this case, fryer art.”
“According to this CNN article from 2001, the breakaway cord is a standard that was developed by Underwriters Laboratories and is used on countertop deep fryers, fondue sets and similar kitchen gadgets. It was designed to reduce burns caused when a child pulls on the cord,” Ard reports.
Full article here.
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Patent’s aside, it is still a much needed and elegant solution to a long standing problem. Way to go Apple!
Yeah, I have one of those on a hot water dispenser. It doesn’t stay attached well at all. I hope the MagSafe works better.
My FRY DADDY Dual has one. Works well. I’ve had it for about 3 years.
opps.
MW Wrong. As in that was the wrong idea.
My Super Duper Portable Handheld Whirl-A-Blender has one, too. It’s pretty neat, I have to admit. But since de Whirl-A-Blender can also be used as a sexual aid, the magnetic plug is much more useful in de bedroom. You know, it just pops out for those times when the cord is stretched a little too far. Yeh-heh-hesssssss, quite useful . . .
FOR ME TO POOP ONNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Patent pending – just maybe it’s not Apple’s patent.
Will be interesting to see how long it takes other laptop manufacturers to copy this very good idea. i speak from the experience of having several laptops go crashing down, one fatally.
The way Steve said, PATENT-PENDING, it sounded like he was joking.
The magnet was pretty strong when I tried it out so it won’t just “fall out”. However, I wonder if, in the longer term, the contacts will wear down.
My friend’s 2-year-old yanked his 12″ Powerbook off a chair by the cord. Still works, but the case is severely deformed. This MagSafe cord is a great idea.
Hey, if Microsoft can patent the iPod GUI after the music player came out, then what the heck!
Maybe I misunderstood the Stevenote, but I thought the big deal about the MagSafe was that the power adapter was built in to that little square part that attaches to the MacBook Pro. (Not just the fact that it can disconnect for safety).
I thought that was the reason for the light on the connector (charge indicator or something like that).
Anybody else have any ideas?
~M
It’s about time SOMEONE adapted this to a laptop. It figures Apple would be first. My only concern is if the magnet will cause any problems with anything sensitive…
KenC writes: “The way Steve said, PATENT-PENDING, it sounded like he was joking.”
He wasn’t joking: “The new MacBook Pro, available in February, also features Apple’s new patent-pending MagSafe™ magnetic power connector…” (emphasis mine).
Clearly many laptops get damaged, or power leads get wrecked by people accidentally tripping over the lead, so this is certainly a very good idea.
What would be even better would be for Apple to offer this type of connection to other laptop manufacturers so that an international standard could be created for laptop power supplies.
The next logical step would be to standardise on a 12V power supply, so that people could use other power supplies wherever they are, rather than have to take a special power supply for each laptop. By opting for 12V it makes use in vehicles easier. If the computer needed higher voltages, DC-DC inverters are very compact and efficient these days.
As far as originality is concerned, I’m pretty sure that here in the UK, motorcycle policemen have used magnetic connectors on their headsets for 20+ years as a safety device in case they get thrown off. Somebody must surely have patented that, but the patent might also have lapsed by now.
Not to sound like a MS tard here, but the original Xbox has had breakaway cords for it’s controllers for years so you don’t trip over one and pull your expensive console off the shelf. However in that implimentation, the cord actually breaks, causing you to have to make sure you don’t lose the plug part, which I did lose one once.
The patent probably has something to do with how the plug ensures that the polarity is correct (it refuses to go in if upside down). Another one might be that the power supply will automatically shut down if the plug is pulled, it has those sensor pins.
Does anyone actually read the entire referring articles and follow-up comments?
Maybe the other company forgot to pantent it — wooooops! hah hah, interception. Actually I think the gecko and other lizzards own this patent since they have had this technology for millions of years
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hehehe… um.. oops? All that really matters is that it’s yet another feature no Windoze box or laptop have ever seen.
Much needed wrote:
“It figures Apple would be first. My only concern is if the magnet will cause any problems with anything sensitive…”
I dunno, Apple thinks magnets are safe enough to hold Front Row remotes to the sides of new iMacs…
It reminds me of the old gag advice of how to use magnets to hold disks to the side of your monitor for safe keeping.
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Apple is first to market a non-wall voltage version of this device. Also, MagSafe uses more pins in connection.
Well if the Powerbook went G5 then this certainly would qualify it as a cooktop. Then you’d haved a battle with the Underwriters Labs peeps, wouldn’t you?
What has stopped the patent office from handing out patents that weren’t legitimate in the past? Nothing!
We just launched a lawsuit last week that made me change the subsctance of the keynote, and not reveal a bunch of cool new things! You think I’m happy?
But we have to try and patenet it, or Dell will be all over this thing.
Bozo copy cats.
Just make sure you have a working battery in your McBook so it does not get shut down completely when the cord is yanked.
Hey, Steve Jobs:
If Underwriters Laboratories developed the standard, and Dell wants it, then there’s nothing you can do. Face it, you got stung and now the world knows. So just have some grace about it and shelve the patent ideas.
Besides, from the money you don’t spend fightning a battle you can’t win, maybe you can lower the price of that FMTuner/earphone connector-thingy to something more in line with ‘reasonable’. Or maybe put a dual layer DVD burner back in the PowerBook. Sorry – “Mak Book Pro”. Better yet, hire some people who know how to convince you not to give up cool names for sucky ones. Especially for major products.
Idiot.