“On April 12, 2012, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals a new electronic content authoring tool in the works that’s configured to optimize authored content for one or more intended devices,” Jack Purcher reports for Patently Apple.
“According to Apple, the existing solutions on the market today are simply not adequate to eliminate barriers between content creators and the presentation of high quality electronic content on a variety of platforms,” Purcher reports. “Today’s report presents you with a grand overview of Apple’s new authoring tool which includes a few cool user interface elements that we’re likely to see surface in the not-too-distant future. ”
Tons more, including Apple’s patent application illustrations and diagrams, in the full article here.
I’ve been waiting for this since HyperCard got the axe.
this is just a patent covering iAd Producer and Patently Apple overselling it
Is this for the new iWeb?
Hwoever axed HyperCard should be tarred and feathered.
It was a genuine Apple revolution that killed by the bean counters.
When iAd Producer was announced I thought that it on the surface represented a basis if Apple wished for it, to become an iWeb replacement. Perhaps, just perhaps this patent shows just how this could be the case but clearly so much more than a basic web site creator which perhaps was something of a dead end with inherent restriction that iweb could not break free from itself. Perhaps with icloud this solution would allow so much more potential that takes such software away from heavyweight pigs like Dreamweaver at one end and the lightweight inflexible web solutions that are becoming common offering a flexible and media interactive solution without the limitations. We shall see.
This would be great for education, get people interested so they can advanced later. In business it could be used for in house apps. This could add a new job in IT, not just keep the computers running, but to create content for the business. This would be great for someone to get a project started then send it to a pro for the final version. I would like to know if this could be used of a iOS device. If so it would end the one big compliant about iPads not being “real” computers. That a computer must be able to create an application that can run on itself (I know the first Mac could not do that).
@ Monoche. While the patent mentions advertizing deep into the patent, it is not in the patent claims nor in their abstract or summary. So while it could be used for ads, it’s only one aspect of the patent. Meaning that it really is being created with other types of developers. Apple could have simply tried it out on ad developers first to work out the foibles. Anyways, if it was an iAd patent, Apple would have clearly indicated that ads were the primary focus and they didn’t do that. So it’s not just for iAd, that’s for sure.
Check it yourself. The patent office lists it as “CONTENT CONFIGURATION FOR DEVICE PLATFORMS.”
The patent talks about creating content that will run on any device including a desktop. Have you seen an iAd running on your desktop lately? I didn’t think so. Apple makes it clear that developers won’t have to “convert” their content to run on other devices. I like the idea, but it’s still way over my skill level. It’s not for beginners, from what I read.