Apple “has rethought the concept of the mobile hotspot for situations where a person wants connectivity but doesn’t want to carry around their smartphone, such as when they’re jogging or doing other physical activities,” Liam Tung reports for ZDNet.
“The company applied for a patent for such a device in 2013, which was published by the US Patents and Trademarks Office yesterday,” Tung reports. “The patent shows a cylindrical unit that’s small enough to sit on a keychain and is activated with a twisting motion.”
“There’s no mention of the Apple Watch in the patent, but as some have noted, it could be a useful companion for the wearable, which currently relies on an iPhone’s network connection for many of its functions,” Tung reports. “While the Watch is one use case for the hotspot, Apple notes that the device’s compact design and smaller battery requirements also make it a useful way of avoiding connecting to shared hotspots, which for various reasons can be security risks. The device would also be would be more portable than most existing mobile hotspots.”
Read more, and see Apple’s patent application illustration, in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We’re just about to dump our Nike+ Running app (and stop all of our Nike stats collection) for Apple’s Workout because we just want to run with only our Apple Watches.