“Future iPhones could be thinner and more secure thanks to technology outlined in two unique proposed inventions from Apple, covering adaptive security profiles and a new type of split-sensor camera,” AppleInsider reports.
“The first application published Thursday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, entitled ‘Electronic device with two image sensors,’ details a camera comprised of two distinct sensors: one sensor would capture luma, or brightness, data, while the other could capture chroma, or color, information,” AppleInsider reports. “The final image would be created by combining the data captured by each sensor… This would allow the device housing the camera to be made correspondingly thinner… Additionally, Apple says that the split design would allow for improved signal-to-noise ratio resulting in increased image quality.”
“The second application, entitled ‘Electronic devices having adaptive security profiles and methods for selecting the same,’ depicts a scenario in which a mobile device could automatically enable or disable certain security protocols depending on the device’s location,” AppleInsider reports. “For example, an iPhone could require a simple four-digit passcode while in a user’s home but insist on a fingerprint for authentication once it leaves that area.”
Read more, and see Apple patent application illustrations, in the full article here.
I like this. Thinner iPhone but improve better camera. I hate the look from competitors with the camera lens sticking out like a sore thumb. It looks like a forced slapped on piece of kit on the phone.
And how about putting the camera in the middle of the phone’s back so that we don’t keep putting our finger in the way!
Excuses, excuses; surely you can see your own finger showing on the screen before you take the photo, it’s not a viewfinder camera.
The reason for the camera being where it is, is for people who take photos with the iPhone in a vertical position. Placing the camera in the middle would invariably result in the same problem as you mentioned.
Go to Samsung. Go directly to Samsung. Collect your $200 for running that past us.
Because that would “stack” the camera thickness on top of the LCD display thickness.
TROLL
Ugh!!
The thinner the iPhone gets, the harder it is to hold and use with one hand.
We’re talking maybe a millimetre, or less, thinner; are you so clumsy you can’t hold something like that?
Get a cheap clear plastic case to make it that teensy little bit thicker.
Or hold it tighter.
two words… iPod touch
How about a voice activated camera so I don’t have to move my thumb and potentially blur the shot? Specifically on my iPad.
So how about you ask Siri to take your photo for you.
Just sayin’, right?
I have this idea about placing the camera so that it points along the WIDTH of the phone, and using a precision mirror to direct the field of view to either the front side or the back side of the phone. The thickness of the phone does not limit the length of the optics, and one camera be used for both the front and the back, base on how the mirror is flipped or rotated.
Screw this inventions.
We need more powerful SPEAKERS, Apple !!!!
When I want a friend to listen something, I
Gotta put my phone in a concavity formed by my two hands!!
And no, my friend is not deaf.
Earbuds? Share a link? Or do you want a huge ghetto blaster of a phone?
Phones are for private use and not public annoyance. Think about it.
Location aware security profiles. Excellent! I wrote to Apple some time ago suggesting this. Makes sense – when I’m at home or in a designated safe environment I don’t want to have to bother with the password to unlock – but when elsewhere, I do.
I could definitely deal with that. It has major professional appeal in general.
However: There’s always granny. I think I’d turn off the extra security features for her iPhone. Otherwise she’d be calling me every time she left the house, oh no it’s granny again, ack.
Separating the chroma and luminance signals used to be done on four tube broadcast television cameras. The great advantage was that the luminance ( B&W ) image offered very high resolution, while the three colour tubes were of a lower resolution. Essentially you acquired a high resolution B&W image and matrixed the colour information in to it, which produced superb colour images that were both sharp and natural looking. In Apple’s idea, the luminance sensor will be larger, to offer higher resolution and lower noise than the chroma sensor.
The only thing that puzzles me about this is how the images from the sensors are made to align perfectly ? In four tube cameras, they used a single lens followed by a colour splitting prism to split the light before it reached the sensors, which was bulky and expensive. Apple appears to be using two separate lenses close together. That suggests that there might be parallax issues with them, especially when focussed at either near or far extremes.
Software is the answer to how they align the images.
The chroma image does not have to be that well aligned either to produce great images.
I wonder what color space they’ll be using. Off the top of my head I assumed it would be LAB.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lab_color_space
It used to be common practice to transform color images into LAB, then knock out the AB (color) components in order to get the best quality B&W version of the image. Nothing beat it.
I wish they would just take one generation and sacrifice the savings and rather than make it thinner just stick in a huge battery that gives longer life than any other phone by a clear margin. It’d still be thin and then subsequent savings for the next iPhone would be as normal. I don’t have any real problems with battery life most days, but it would be nice to have that extra life and be able to hammer it if I wanted.