“On March 8, the US Patent & Trademark Office published Apple’s patent application titled Lanyard for handheld electronic device,” Neo reports for MacNN.
“Apple’s patent generally relates to lanyards for handheld electronic devices and more particularly, lanyards that incorporate electronic circuitry. Apple’s next generation of lanyards discussed in the patent go far beyond today’s designs to accommodate their upcoming iPhone and other future iterations of the iPod. In some cases, the lanyard itself will add functionality beyond those of the attached devices, such as adding telephony to any iPod, lighting effects that relate to heart rates for joggers and additional input facilitators such as buttons, touch pads or sliders,” Neo reports.
Neo’s report covers Apple’s key lanyard patent features and functionalities here.