“The US Patent and Trademark office today published a patent application from Apple hinting at a significantly more capable multi-media center. The patent is entitled ‘Multi-media center for computing systems,'” LoopRumors reports.
“The system described by the patent involves a module contoller which is central to many devices and software,” LoopRumors reports.
LoopRumors reports, “Apple points that user input may be entered via a remote device, including a ‘media-player with remote control capabilities.’
“The emergence of this patent could indicate possible improvements of the recently released Apple TV, which could include communication with other devices such as the iPod or iPhone, allowing content to be streamed from one of these devices to an Apple media center,” LoopRumors reports.
Full article, with patent app illustrations, here.
MacDailyNews Note: The line in the patent app illustration has arrows at each end which would also mean allowing content to be streamed from an Apple media center to iPod and/or iPhone.
Oh man.
One of my dream ideas was that iPhone could be used in combination with AppleTV; I’m sitting in my living room, watching my AppleTV, and I decide to check MDN. I pull out my iPhone and presto, I have “mini-Safari” (the iPhone version) running on my TV.
iPhone and AppleTV are similar in that they both have to deal with the problem of limited screen space (it’s limited on TV by your distance from the screen). TV has the additional problem of lacking sophisticated input; it’s all fine and dandy to run Safari on it, but how will you control it? Not with the Apple Remote, surely. But with iPhone? Oh yes. Please say this will happen.
Knew it. iPhone is going to be your universal remote. That’s why the Front Row remote is so basic.
Or! I go to my friend’s house with my iPhone in my pocket. “Hey, wanna see this thingy I downloaded yesterday?” He goes to Sources in TV, and my iPhone shows up. Oh yes.
Screw Vista! This news deserves the “Wow”.
@ neven
EXACTLY. =) You’ve got your content with you, and you can view and control it anywhere. My original idea was that TVs would all have docking bay or some such thing, but this is going to be infinitely better.
This might even be better than squirting.
Has noone realized that the iPhone is the remote control!!!!
It connects via wireless to computer and apple TV and acts as your remote control with a simple little app.
It would be THE killer application … and so easy to achieve
Cheers
Java
iPhone will be the remote of control your world
iPhone BITCHES!!
I’m a geek, have never flirted.
Play with Gizmos, have only squirted.
But with the release of Apple TVs,
Playing with my remote will surely please.
No longer having to go it alone
I now can do it now with my iPhone.
Looks like I prematurely ejaculated the now in the last line
^ “Looks like I prematurely ejaculated the now in the last line.”
AND . . . there goes lunch.
If this interplay between Apple devices turns out the way we can expect it to, the game of catch-up for mp3 player vendors, phone vendors, and media center vendors will become infinitely more futile.
Welcome to the sofa! TM
Cheers,
Tim.
I hate people who say things would be “so easy to achieve” – after the event.
Try “nigh impossible”.
the iPhone will NOT be a remote; at least, not the *only* remote. So let’s say I buy an iPhone and make it the remote for my home theater system. Then I leave with my iPhone, and my wife wants to watch TV?
Wouldn’t it be great if it could pause real life, like in that Adam Sandler film “Click.”
You could pause Monkeyboy in the middle of him blowing-up, and move all the chairs around the room.
Confuse the hell out of him (even more than normal…)
“So let’s say I buy an iPhone and make it the remote for my home theater system. Then I leave with my iPhone, and my wife wants to watch TV?”
Damn. You’re right. That would totally suck.
Here’s a quick solution: Buy a second iPhone for the wife. Buy a third and fourth for the kids, too, in case they’re home alone and want to watch TV.
I’m sure Apple would have no complaints if you did that.
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tell her to get her own damn phone
Better yet…lock your wife in a closet.
Like I do.
I take her out whenever I feel like it…shovel food under the door…you know, kinda Silence of the Lambs in nature…but not as gross.
“tell her to get her own damn phone”
And make me a sandwich, dingbat.
Hey, new Leopard dev build today!!! Off to load it…
{nda}
Would someone explain to me why this isn’t just a patent for Front Row?
I don’t see anything in it suggesting it isn’t. My God, you people seem foolish.
So they patented the Playstation 3?