Three Apple patents have appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office regarding GarageBand, the music creation component of Apple's iLife suite.

Patent 20100162878 is for a music instruction system. Per the patent a song audio is played and a graphical representation of a musical instrument contributing to the audio is displayed. A fingering display is overlayed on the graphical representation of the instrument during the playing of song. The fingering display is synchronized to the song audio. During the playing of the song audio, the tempo of the song is adjusted.

The pitch of the song is substantially preserved in real-time despite the tempo adjustment. In addition, the synchronization between the fingering display and the audio are maintained in real-time in view of the adjusted tempo. The inventors are Gerhard H. Lengeling, Alexander Soren, Jan-hinnerk Helms, Alexander H. Little, John Danty, Matthew C. Evans, Timothy B. Martin, Ole Lagemann...

Two Apple patents have appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office that involve graphics and displays.

Patent number 20100164964 is for a display system with improved graphics abilities while switching graphics processing units. That's something high-end MacBook Pros can do now, but Apple may plan to carry it further.

The patent involves methods and apparatuses for improving graphics abilities while switching between graphics processing units (GPUs). Some embodiments may include a display system, including a plurality of graphics processing units (GPUs) and a memory buffer coupled to the GPUs via a timing controller, where the memory buffer stores data associated with a first video frame from a first GPU within the plurality of GPUs and where the timing controller is switching between the first GPU and a second GPU within the plurality. The inventors are Kapil V. Sakariya, Victor H. Yin and Michael F. Culbert.

Patent number...

You have your wireless mouse and your wireless keyboard. But that's just the tip of the wireless iceberg that will be floating around your house or office in the new few years. And this wireless-ness will affect much more than your Macs and your iDevices.

Last year ABI Research forecast one million wireless HDTV installations by 2012. Why? Wireless will simplify some installations and allow more flexibility in positioning TVs, according to the research group. ABI Research says wireless-ness will continue to grow significantly because more and more consumers are going to the Internet for video content.

Exactly how this will shape up isn't clear, as there are various technologies competing for Big Love: mainly, Wireless HD, Wireless Home Digital Interface and WiGig.

WirelessHD is an industry-led effort to define a specification for the next generation wireless digital network interface for wireless high-definition signal transmission for consumer electronics...

It's just a matter of time before we see OLED displays in iPads, iPods and iPhones. And almost certainly in Macs in the not-too-distant future.

OLEDs (or organic light emitting diode displays) require less power than conventional displays and can be slimmer (around 0.2-0.3mm or about 8 thousandths of an inch, compared to LCDs, which are typically at least 10 times thicker) and lighter -- so you can see how they would appeal to Steve Jobs. They also offer better contrast, better viewing angles, greater brightness, and almost instant response times -- all of which would be especially appealing in iPads and laptops.

The drawback is price. Right now OLED displays are significantly more costly than LED screens. The 9.7-inch LCD panel for iPad costs about US$60-70, but the price of a 9.7-inch OLED panel is about US$500. However, the price gap isn't expected to narrow appreciably for another couple of years -- or longer.

But it will, in time. Eventually, OLED screens...

An Apple patent (number 7,75,968) for content abstraction presentation along a multidimensional path has appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office. It involves the Apple TV interface -- or at least a future version of it.

The invention is related to media processing systems and methods. The inventors are Rainer Brodersen, Rachel Clare Goldeen, Jeffrey Ma, Mihnea Calin Pacurariu, Thomas Michael Madden, Eric Taylor Seymour and Steve Jobs.

Here's Apple's background and summary of the patent: "Media devices, such as digital video and audio players, can include multiple functions and capabilities, such as playing stored content, browsing and selecting from recorded content, storing and/or receiving content selected by a user, and the like. These various functions can often be grouped according to content types, e.g., movies, music, television programs, photos, etc.

"The functions can then be accessed through various user interfaces that are typically...

The market for mobile broadband connectivity for portable computers has been slow to gain momentum over the past several years. But that's apparently about to change.

Only in the past 18 months has the U.S. market taken significant steps toward broader adoption beyond the traditional mobile worker. According to a new International Data Corporation (IDC) forecast, the U.S. mobile broadband market will grow from 6.5 million subscribers in 2009 to 30.2 million in 2014, which accounts for a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 36.1% over the forecast period.

The introduction of subsidized netbooks and tablets, changes to pricing structures, and the early availability of 4G with WiMAX (and upcoming LTE deployments) have begun to spur interest among the consumer segment about the power of mobile broadband as a secondary access method beyond wired broadband. Although the possibility of mobile broadband becoming a primary access technology remains a figment of our...

An Apple patent (number 20100156818) for a multi touch with haptics has appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office. It hints at upcoming iPhones, iPod touches and iPads that would accept a number of physical feedback responses through haptic feedback.

Haptic technology, or haptics, is a tactile feedback technology that takes advantage of a user's sense of touch by applying forces, vibrations, and/or motions to the user. When referring to mobile devices, this generally means the use of vibrations from the device's vibration alarm to denote that a touchscreen button has been pressed.

Methods and systems for processing touch inputs are disclosed in the Apple patent. The invention in one respect includes reading data from a multi-touch sensing device such as a multi-touch touch screen where the data pertains to touch input with respect to the multi-touch sensing device, and identifying at least one multi-touch gesture based on the data from the multi-touch sensing...

Still think that there's no room for growth or innovation on the Mac? Well, to the naysayers I must point out that there's plenty of room for both.

In 2005, market research firm IDC pegged Apple's share of the U.S. PC market at 4 %. In the first quarter of 2010, that number had grown to 6.4%. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster estimates that for every half-percentage point of market share growth Apple boosts its sales by about US$3 billion.

And unit sales of the Mac have grown even more impressively than market share. In fiscal 2004, Apple sold 3.29 million Macs. It sold 3.36 million in the first quarter of 2010 alone.

What of new features? I've repeatedly argued for Blu-ray support, a built-in TV tuner on at least some Macs and -- also on some Macs -- touch screen support. Arik Hesseldahl, in his column for "Bloomberg BusinessWeek" (...

Apple has been granted patents by the US Patent & Trademark Office for the Apple TV user interface, the iMac, the iPhone, the iPod, and more.

Patents 7,743,116 and 7,743,338 are for the Apple TV interface. Patent number D618,241 is for the iMac. Patent number D618,204 is for the iPhone 2G. Patent number D618,207 is for the design of the original iPod. Patent number D618,206 is for the design of the second gen iPod nano, while patent number D618,205 is for the third gen model.

Two other Apple patents also appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office. Patent number 7,742,525 is for adaptive motion estimation. The patent involves a method for adaptively performing motion estimation. In some embodiments, the method initially performs a first motion estimation operation. It then determines whether the estimated error in the result of the first motion estimation is greater than a particular threshold. If not, the method uses the results of the...

By Greg Mills

The Apple spokesman was clearly shaken as he announced to a stunned press conference the unbelievable news that iPhone has finally been "killed" by a competitor's new smart phon that is "light years ahead of Apple R&D." 

The promising launch of iPhone 4 has been cancelled and shipped stock recalled, 450,000 Foxxcom workers have been laid off. Email from Apple will go out to customers soon explaining the sudden withdrawal of Apple from the cell phone market.

Steve Jobs has announced his early retirement and put his jet up for sale. Jobs is planning to sell cold refreshments from his new ice cream truck. He says he is hoping for a hot summer at the beach.  

"I always wanted to drive an ice cream truck" Jobs gushed, as he was interviewed leaving the Apple Campus in disgrace. "We can't come back from this technological Waterloo. Wouldn't you know it, if a true iPhone Killer was coming, Microsoft and Balmer are the ones to...

By Greg Mills

The Micro Cell technology AT&T recently announced is sort of like a 3G WiFi device. They can be really small and amount to a mini cell tower connected to your Internet connection. The fact that they are needed says a lot about the network holes that bug us all who use iPhones, iPads, and, for that matter, all junk (non Apple) cell phones that use AT&T. 

If the device works as advertised, it will create a small area where a strong 3G signal will fill in the holes in the AT&T network we seem to all fall into. To be fair, there are problems due to dense buildings, geographic issues like hills and mountains. My house is one of those problem areas due to a metal roof with two layers of grounded steel and one layer on the exterior walls.  This amounts to a radio dampening field. Sometimes I go to a window and get a better signal.

The US$150 one-time charge for the MicroCell device is one thing, but charging users for minutes...

By Greg Mills

Would you date Scarlett Johansson if she had Roseann Barr attached at the hip as a Siamese twin?  Could you read a fairy tail about Prince Charming who had Quasimoto as a Siamese twin to children?  

I doubt such a horrible image would lull them to sleep. It seems to me Apple/AT&T and Clear/Sprint are also such unlikely corporate dual monstrosities with an attractive partner merged in some way to a stone downer.

Another image I actually saw was iPhone with a ball and chain attached using the AT&T logo as the ball. As an iPhone subscriber, my experience with AT&T customer service has been fine; it is the slow network that bugs me.  If you ever see the slogan "AT&T, no bars in more places," let me know; they have plagiarized my slogan. I submitted the idea to them, and they never got back to me.  

Actually, as iPhone users know, you can have five bars and still drop the call or have the web crawl like the dial...