“On February 1, the US Patent & Trademark Office published Apple’s patent application titled Configuration of a computing device in a secure manner . Apple’s patent describes the ability of a future wireless iPod and/or iPhone (simply noted as a cellular phone of course) being able to access Apple’s iTunes Music Store in a secure manner for the purposes of a device upgrade or commercial transaction. Admittedly the patent is a little confusing in that on one hand it appears that they could be describing a method relating to a third party cellphone such as Motorola’s ROKR, and on the other hand, there are services being described here that have never surfaced publicly. In the spirit of traditional Apple secrecy, this was likely Apple’s way of trying to hide the fact that they had a cellphone in production at the time of this application,” Neo reports for MacNN.
Much more, including patent application illustrations, in the full article here.
Talk to me.
I don’t have Cingular, but if they’re anything like Verizon, it means they have some wonky storeffront app for purchasing wallpaper, games, etc. I wonder if the iPhone will include this, or if Apple has beeen able to sidestep the Cingular store in favor of iTunes?
And how about ringtones? Will cingular lose this chunk of their business when customers buy iPhones?
Wireless iPod. Sit in your local internet cafe and download some tunes. Plug in your iPod when you get home and the songs sync onto your computer. Sweet.
Ring tones are the biggest scam ever. They are a waste of money. Thanks Steve for freeing us from them!
@ jay
I will never figure out why people don’t make their own mp3 ringtones (for those that have the capability.) I make my own all the time, it’s about as simple as it gets.
Such a rip off!
@ Eric
AMEN. If you have Verizon, goodluck putting a ringtone you created on your phone. And if you have a Treo 650 from Sprint, like me, you will need 3rd party apps to play an mp3 as a ringtone, otherwise, you have to use wav files….so Apple is doing us a HUGE favor.
Ability to pay your cell phone bill through iTunes using your iPhone?
Ability to buy iPhone accesories (hardware) using iTunes?
Ability to buy iPhone software (new widgets/games/ringtones/apps) using iTunes?
If you have songs on your ipod there is no way to put them back on your machine (outside of using third party apps).
If you buy a song via the iphone, is it stuck on the iphone and not allowed to be syncd on your machine? what does the RIAA/music labels have to say about that?
for those who wonder how to make ringtones on a Mac…
the only software u need – iTunes and Quicktime Pro (or even iMovie)…
I do it all the time!
why people pay for ringtones is beyond me!
Question: “If you have songs on your ipod there is no way to put them back on your machine (outside of using third party apps).”
That is the current set up. Who’s to say that Apple can’t do it in the future? iPod is their device, FairPlay is their DRM and Mac OS X is their OS. Everything is developed inhouse. If 3rd party devs can do it, why can’t Apple? The only reason why there is no solution from Apple now is because you can’t buy songs from iPods.
Try telling us how get said home brewed tone onto your phone,
Smart ass.
For the ringtone makers out there… I just use iTunes, or sometimes I use Garageband and iTunes to make shortened, or custom mp3s. Also, for ringtones, no need for super-high bitrates, so just experiment.
Question: “If you have songs on your ipod there is no way to put them back on your machine (outside of using third party apps).”
I believe iTunes 7 introduced the ability to copy purchased songs off of an iPod to an authorized computer, which helps a bit (though I agree that it’d be great if you could transfer everything that way without using something like PodWorks).
Bizarro Zune Tang,
Is that a serious question? I use Bluetooth File Exchange in the /Applications/Utilities folder to add them to my Razr. I imagine that when I get an iPhone it will be even easier.
In addition to what “../.” said, consider the possibility that the iPhone will be treated as a computer, not an iPod. That is, in order to purchase media through iTunes, the iPhone would be an “authorized device” in terms of the number of computers that are authorized to play the FairPlay DRM’ed media. If so, then transferring the files would be as easy as it is today (or even easier, assuming that Apple will seek to encourage/facilitate iPhone purchases from the iTunes Store).
The iPhone is clearly a mobile computing platform with limited onboard storage. I have no doubt that Apple will embed syncing functionality from the iPhone to your home computer. Based on the Apple TV and iPhone, Apple clearly intended for a Mac to serve as the hub for serving your digital media wired and wirelessly to various end devices (Apple TV, iPod, iPhone).
iTunes allows you to copy purchased songs back to your computer!
I connedcted my nano to my wife’s iBook last night (we share the same iTunes account, and it asked me if I wanted to move some purchased songs that were on my nano to here iTunes library which weren’t currently there.
So chill out. Apple has given us this already!
I am glad to see that Neo escaped the Macsimum security rendition facility where they took away his imagination and his ability to write in normal english.
It is sad to see that he now limits himself to report the facts — and just the facts — of the patent office applications made by Apple and its agents.
It was great to read his interpretation of what Apple’s patents meant for the future in Neo’s Next Wave of the Internet series of articles.
I rather read someone speculating based on available facts and a creative imagination — even if the person ends up being wrong all of the time. It’s still good reading for all kind of obvious and useful reasons.
It’s not clear what they did to Neo at that Macsimum facility. It may be sad to know — all those psychological operations to break the will of the enemy and eastern bloc torture techniques.
I used to be a fan reader of Neo but now I am just an ex-Neo’s fan.
I make ringtones for my verizon phone all the time. Shorten a song in garageband to 30 seconds long. Convert it to 64 kbps in iTunes, then e-mail it to “your number”@vzwpix.com. Go to the incoming pix message, open it and hit “options.” Scroll down and press save as ringtone. It’s great!
Hello Starbucks and downloading tunes to my 6th gen ipod right there with my fellow Zune homies (er more like homie, singular)
I like facts and Neo is working hard to get the news out about real products to be. He covered 20 or so patents last year and the first to so in respect to touchscreens. That’s real news and stunning that it all came to be within a year.
Neo, if you remember the Next Wave series, spoke of Apple introducing an NC when everyone thought he was nuts. What’s the iPhone? An NC.
I still keep in touch with Neo and the Neo we knew will eventually write some interesting articles once again I hear. I just don’t think that MacNN is the place it’ll be done on.
Still a fan and respect the facts he digs up each week in his patent reports. Thumbs up for the nextwave
This is the third time that I’ve read a patent here and this ex-neo guy says the same thing in different ways all the time. Troll? Sounds like that idiot appleX reporter trent whining, again. Get over it. I mean, who else would slam macsimum?
Apple had another patent once about an itunes reservation system. I wonder what the difference is here or are if they’re tied together somehow?
Hey Ex-Neo fan, i spent my childhood on a farm. drove all kinds of farm machinery, as a youngster i was a total tractor lover, a big tractor fan, especially the old Ford and the Ferguson TE – but now as a city slicker i am a …
… Extractor Fan … but thats cool
Hey Ex-Neo fan, i spent my childhood on a farm. drove all kinds of farm machinery, as a youngster i was a total tractor lover, a big tractor fan, especially the old Ford and the Ferguson TE – but now as a city slicker i am a …
… Extractor Fan … but thats cool
Hey Ex-Neo fan, i spent my childhood on a farm. drove all kinds of farm machinery, as a youngster i was a total tractor lover, a big tractor fan, especially the old Ford and the Ferguson TE – but now as a city slicker i am a …
… Extractor Fan … but thats cool