Apple has won several patents from the US Patent & Trademark Office, including design patents for the iMac and Apple TV.

Patent D620932 is for the ornamental design of a computer (the iMac) and patent D620,953 is for the ornamental design of a media device (the Apple TV). The inventors listed on these patents are Andre K. Bartley, Daniel J. Coster, Daniele De Iuliis, Richard P. Howarth, Jonathan P. Ive, Steve Jobs, Duncan Robert Kerr, Shin Nishibori, Matthew Dean Rohrbach, Peter Russell-Clarke, Douglas B. Satzger, Calvin Q. Seid, Christopher J. Stringer, Eugene Antony Whang and Rico Zorkendorfer.

Patent number 7,760,903 is for intelligent interaction between a media player and host computer. Improved techniques for interaction between a host computer (e.g., personal computer) and a media player are disclosed. According to one aspect, interaction between a host computer and a media player, such as automatic synchronization of media contents...

Recently I lamented that Apple seems about to drop iDVD from the iLife suite. I think that's a mistake, but "Macsimum" reader John Konopka points out that Apple often gives us a replacement if they drop something.

Could it be that the giant server site that Apple is building in Maiden, North Carolina, will be the replacement for iDVD? Rather than burning DVDs Apple may want us to send movies to the cloud from which they can be accessed almost anywhere.

This won't satisfy the people making actual films, but it should be a fine YouTube replacement, John notes. True, but I still maintain that there's lots of us folks who would rather have physical media than our stuff stored in the cloud. Or at least in addition to cloud storage.

-- Dennis Sellers

I'm one of the biggest Apple supporters around -- and have been even during its "beleaguered" years (when I actually did some freelance PR work for the local Apple education branch) -- but I certainly don't consider Apple my religion. Or a religion, at all.

I'm a Christian, and proud of it. On the other hand, I'm a fervent (well, usually) supporter of Apple products, but certainly don't worship them or the company that makes them. The same can be said of other Christians -- and Jews, Hindus, Muslims, etc. -- worldwide.

However, in a research paper published this month (http://macosg.me/2/m9) by two professors at Texas A&M University, the authors argue that the only way to understand the slavish adoration and over-the top financial success of Apple and the iPhone is to understand its minimalist, white-walled stores as the new churches of the tech generation.

"The religious-like behavior and...

Apple wants you to be able to use your iPhone, iPod touch and perhaps your iPad to be able to navigate a real-world environment via 3D images A new company patent (number 20100188503) has appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office for generating a three-dimensional model using a portable electronic device recording.

According to Apple, an electronic device can load and provide an initial display of a three dimensional model (e.g., of an environment or of an object). As the user moves the electronic device, motion sensing components, positioning circuitry, and other components can detect the device movement and adjust the displayed portion of the three-dimensional model to reflect the movement of the device.

By walking with the device in the user's real environment, a user can virtually navigate a representation of a three-dimensional environment. In some embodiments, a user can record an object or environment using an electronic device, and tag the recorded...

An Apple patent (number 7,765,213) for an ordered index has appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office. The company is examining ways to make the retrieval of information easier and more efficient on Mac OS X.

Systems and methods for processing an index are described. A postings list of items containing a particular term are ordered in a desired retrieval order, e.g., most recent first. The ordered items are inserted into an inverted index in the desired retrieval order, resulting in an ordered inverted index from which items may be efficiently retrieved in the desired retrieval order. During retrieval, items may first be retrieved from a live index, and the retrieved items from the live and ordered indexes may be merged. The retrieved items may also be filtered in accordance with the items' file grouping parameters. The inventors are Wayne Loofbourrow, John Martin Hoernkvist, Eric Richard Koebler and Yan Arrouye.

Here's Apple's background and summary of the...

The rumor mill says that iLife will be updated next month, going to 64-bit, introducing a "mystery" application and dropping iDVD.

It won't be surprising if Apple drops iDVD, but it will be disappointing. Apple -- or at least Steve Jobs -- seem determined to phase out CD and DVD support, hoping Apple users will go completely digital. And, no doubt, turn to MobileMe, iTunes and other Apple services for buying and storing all their content.

The rumor mill also says that Apple will continue to offer iDVD as a download. I hope that's true. And I hope that the app will continue to be updated as Mac OS X is updated. But I suspect it will simply be allowed to languish a la iMovie HD --- which, I maintain, was still lots better than the version of iMovie that now ships with iLife.

But the writing has been on the wall for awhile. When Apple introduced iLife '09, iDVD was barely mentioned. It wasn't updated and received no new themes.

-- Dennis Sellers

Apple has won several design patents from the US Patent & Trademark Office. Several others have also appeared. Following is a summary of each.

Patent number 7,7645,236 is for a broadband antenna for handheld devices (namely, iPhone antennas). Broadband antennas and handheld electronic devices with broadband antennas are provided. A handheld electronic device has integrated circuits, a display, and a battery mounted within a housing. The housing has a planar inner surface. A broadband antenna for the handheld electronic device has a ground element and a resonating element. The ground element and resonating element may have the same shape and may have the same size. The ground element and resonating element may lie in a common plane and be separated by a gap that lies in the common plane. The plane in which the ground element and resonating element lie may be parallel to the planar inner surface of the housing. Electronic components such as the integrated...

Various sources say the Mac Pro, the iMac and the Cinema Display will get updates soon, perhaps as early as Tuesday. Look for USB 3 support to be added, and perhaps Firewire 1600/3200.

I also suspect the new iMac will sport an HDMI port. What you almost certainly won't see is Blu-ray (which means Apple is still lagging Windows competitors in this area).

The new iMacs will probably pack faster Core i5 and/or i7 processors. I think there's a chance -- though perhaps a slim one -- that a high-end iMac might come in a six-core option.

As for the Mac Pro, look for Apple to go with faster six-core Xeon processors with perhaps a "low-end" quad-core model.

"AppleInsider" (http://www.appleinsider.com) says the new rev of the Cinema Display will have a display resolution of 2560 x 1400 pixels. That sounds about right.

-- Dennis Sellers

I know you just love talking on your new iPhone 4 (and, nope, no "antennagate" jokes here). But puh-leeze don't do it while you're driving.

U.S. drivers say they are seeing first-hand the danger of driving while distracted -- or DWD; add a new acronym to your vocabulary. A new public opinion poll conducted by Harris Interactive for Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company shows nearly four out of 10 (38%) drivers say they have been hit or nearly hit by a driver distracted by their cell phone.

The telephone survey of 1,004 adults conducted in June confirms Americans’ increasing use of smart phone applications is creating new distractions behind the wheel in addition to talking on the phone and texting while driving. According to a previous DWD survey (conducted for Nationwide by Harris Interactive in April), among the millions of Americans who download mobile applications for smart phones, more than one in four admit to using those apps while driving.

“The number of...

We need more voice-enabled apps for our iOS devices. But let me explain. Macs have been able to handle limited speech recognition for a while now. And the new iPhone 4 has some additional speech control built-in.

That implies a Cocoa library, although as best I can ascertain, it's not a public library for developers to use. If I'm right, then Apple should go public with it, so that we can have more voice-enabled applications. For example, while you can use things like Vlingo or even Dragon to create voice text messages, they either cost more money to use or require extra steps to send a simple text.

An Apple Messages app needs to be able to use the speech recognition library to translate your speech into a text message and then be able to do text-to-speech to read the text responses back to you. Other phones are picking up on this general ability. Apple has the capability, and I'd love to see it used -- in the iPhone and iPad.

-- Dennis Sellers

The patent is for an audio player includes an audio headset having two earpieces. A playback circuit provides one of a stereophonic program and a monaural program to the audio headset. The monaural program may be created by mixing channels of the stereophonic program. A mode control is coupled to the playback circuit and to the audio headset. The mode control detects when at least one of the two earpieces is not adjacent a listener's ear and causes the playback circuit to deliver the monaural program to the audio headset. The inventors ar Shaohai Chen, Phillip George Tamchina and Jae Han Lee.

Here's Apple's background and summary of the invention: "A listener may utilize a headset in order to receive an audio program in private and personalized manner. Headsets typically include a right earpiece and a left earpiece coupled to a right and left channel of audio, respectively.

"There may be times when the listener may wish to listen to the audio program with only one of...

Apple announced record setting financials yesterday. I had made my predictions prior to the announcement. So how'd I do?

I predicted that Apple e sold 3.52 million Macs, compared to 2.6 million from the same period a year ago. Apple actually sold 3.47 million Macs, so I was a bit too optimistic in my prognosis.

I predicted that Apple sold 10 million iPhones during the quarter, compared to 5.2 million from the same period a year ago. Apple actually sold 8.4 million, so I was way too optimistic in this regard.

I predicted that Apple sold 10.1 million iPods during the quarter, compared to 10.2 for the same period a year ago. The actual figure was 9.41, so, again, I was too high.

Lastly, I forecast that Apple sold 3.5 million iPads during the quarter. In reality it was 3.27 million.

Seems the Street always underestimates Apple, while I -- at least this time around -- was too rosy in my crystal ball grazing.

-- Dennis Sellers