“Apple has been granted a patent (number 9,118,642) by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office that hints at an Apple NAS device/home server I’ve long wanted. The patent is for ‘asset streaming,'” Dennis Sellers reports for AppleWorld.Today. “NAS — or network-attached storage — is a computer data storage server connected to your computer network that provides access to a wide variety of data.”
“According to the patent, servers secure access to the stream of assets, on both an account level and an asset level in accordance with asset metadata registered for the assets during streaming,” Sellers reports. “Of course, this would be great for serving up movies, music and photos to all your Mac OS X and iOS devices.”
“But Apple could take it further,” Sellers writes. “Imagine a range of ‘iServe’ appliances, all based on the Mac mini form factor, that provide media services throughout your home, that are always on, and worked with Siri, Apple’s voice-activated, personal assistant. The media sever would store all your photos, movies, TV shows, music, and more and make them available to all your Macs, iOS devices, and the Apple TV.”
Read more, and see Apple’s patent application illustration, in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Okay, who wants an Apple NAS device/home server (one that comes ready-to-go out of the box, that you don’t have to build yourself and which definitely won’t be called “iServe”)?