Apple was recently granted a gigantic patent covering everything that is the iPhone and a closer look reveals that serious video capabilities might be coming in the next iPhone. Apparently video recording is mentioned frequently throughout the entire document but a few images and sections explain a video conferencing capable phone.
Alexander Wolfe, from InformationWeek, dug up these sections from the patent that clearly explain the video capabilities of the iPhone. Perhaps the iPhone that a lot of people have wanted is finally the works.
“The device supports a variety of applications, such as one or more of the following: a telephone application, a video conferencing application, an e-mail application, an instant messaging application, a blogging application, a photo management application, a digital camera application, a digital video camera application, a Web browsing application, a digital music player application, and/or a digital video player application.”
“In some embodiments, the functions may include telephoning, video conferencing, e-mailing, instant messaging, blogging, digital photographing, digital videoing, Web browsing, digital music playing, and/or digital video playing. Instructions for performing these functions may be included in a computer-readable storage medium or other computer program product configured for execution by one or more processors.”
“In some embodiments, an optical sensor is located on the back of the device, opposite the touch screen display on the front of the device, so that the touch screen display may be used as a viewfinder for either still and/or video image acquisition. In some embodiments, an optical sensor is located on the front of the device so that the user’s image may be obtained for videoconferencing while the user views the other video conference participants on the touch screen display. In some embodiments, the position of the optical sensor can be changed by the user (e.g., by rotating the lens and the sensor in the device housing) so that a single optical sensor may be used along with the touch screen display for both video conferencing and still and/or video image acquisition.”
Plus, there are fantastic patent pictures. You got to love these things.
Now, just because the patent describes this ability, doesn’t particularly mean it will be implemented any time soon or ever. The company just wants to protect its assets by including everything the iPhone could be within the legal bounds of the patent. Still, an iPhone with a video conferencing mode is definitely something within the realm of possibilities - hopefully.
In the meantime they should allow video recording apps onto the app store! :)
Time to Jailbreak your iPhone. It’s not illegal, it’s not a violation of your license, and it will give you plenty of options for recording video.
While its not illegal, i have found jailbroken apps to be quite unstable, and every time i have jb’d my iphone I have restored it back to it’s unjailbroken state within a few days. Even CyCorder (the video recording app for jailbroken iphones) has crashed and locked up my iphone more than any of the AppStore apps during their initial release.
Is this the “same” video conferencing Kevin Rose talked about a loooong time ago? Definitely looks exciting with all those pictures, but until it comes out I’ll be waiting with my cash in hand.
BTW, “protect it’s assets” should be “its”…just FYI :)
Optical Sensor in the patent images the “camera”? As of now…iphone’s camera is on the backside.
Matt,
video conferencing has been around on other phones for a while now ( I had it few years ago on my SonyEricsson P990 in Europe in 2005) as you may know. I think the problem here is AT&T and their network on top of the cost for the device. the 3G iPhone could have been the 1st iPhone, but AT&T could not support it at the time. How in the world would AT&T support live video today? I am not sure that they can. It would take a while.
“the 3G iPhone could have been the 1st iPhone, but AT&T could not support it at the time”
Please explain… AT&T supported countless 3G devices before the iphone.
Thomas,
AT&T may have supported some 3G phones, and they even had the 3G sim cards in all phones, but there was no 3G service with it. Even today, I don’t get 3G service everywhere in the US. There is a very big difference between supporting a 3G device and providing an adequate 3G support and bandwidth to millions of users.
Vassil: WTF are you talking about? I had 3G service on other phones long before the iphone was thought of. Sounds like maybe you just live out in the middle of nowhere.
theres been plenty of 3g phones WITH working 3g service before the iphone.
someone should check the internals of this phone to see if there isnt a mind-control device in there that changes how normal everyday people think every time they lift this piece of slavery to their heads.
did people forget that steve said the 3G radio was too big and battery sucking?
Add that to the growing list of “new” features that Windows Mobile phones have had for years.
you forgot to mentionthe part where nobody likes or wants to use windows mobile beacause it sucks.
let me guess, you are a privileged user of an iphone.
@str1f3 Let me guess.. you’ve never even touched a WM phone huh? Works perfect for me and I have tons of features your iphone is still missing even after 2 attempts at copying WM. Oh yeah, and WM has many millions more users.
i dont think video conferencing is that compelling a feature..i mean, is cool and all, but how often will you really use it? 10% of your calls? Improve battery life and reception..then the rest
Fortunately the rest of the world is a bit more forward thinking than you George.
A bit more gimmicky perhaps? How many video comments you see on techcrunch? I think his 10% was very optimistic.
Every time I’m just about to buy something Apple. They come up with something new. Guess I’m gonna have to wait.
I would rather they upgrade the iphone to keep a call longer than 2min. I love everything about the iphone except it’s ability to work as a phone!
Interesting. It’s the best phone I’ve ever had.
Same here. I just picked it up a few weeks ago. It’s certainly lacking in some standard features, but nothing that I can say I honestly need.
The camera should be upgraded and a call recording functionality would be nice though.
heard about an other apple patent some days ago. I don’t like that kind of news. because the problem is the concept behind patents, and not apple. in this case patents are completely misleading and even ruining a complete economy and it innovation driven market.
If I would be american I would patent masturbation…porn industry would have to pay – big time!
Because humor turns inequity into absurdity. Think about it!
Is “videoing” a word?
yes.
Could that be in some way related with the ‘camera-behind-screen’ patent?
Of course they’re planning to have these features! nobody asks for a patent if they don’t develop it
…Apparently you are not familiar with Apple.
Also patenting an idea is almost always more of a defensive strike than an offensive. It cuts down the competition in the off-chance that the company decides to pursue the idea.
Video chatting will be so sweet.. You give flying kisses to your valentine lol
I like the idea but I am slightly biased towards the general uptake of using video in a business environment however I would want to see the reality of it working on the iphone in relation to quality and latency. Its hard statically so randomly can be quite a challenge
It’s almost a certainty imo that the next iPhone will have HSUPA – hence video chat is a good selling feature that will convince everyone to chuck their iPhone 3G and get the new and improved version.
Haptic keyboard can’t be too far behind, but Apple will probably wait another product cycle to get people to upgrade yet again a year later.
Geniuses they are.
Video conferencing phone? wasnt this in hollywood movies since, 20 years ago or something? how can someone patent this idea?
Definitely a lofty claim that they can conquer video conferencing. To make this successful, you need to enable this across a variety of phones and markets (cross carrier) and have this work over the desktop as well. iVisit has that solution where they offer video chat over windows mobile devices on Wifi, 3G and HSDPA
I think this “video application” can be something great in the future.
Finally, the aim of the phone is to aid in communication and nothing is better than face to face communication. I think, people would soon get used to face to face conversation using their iphone.
The one thing I miss since I switched form my windows mobile phone is being able to video skype via my phone.
let’s hope apple let’s skype take advantage of this
this would be another killer app. BUT it will require LTE bandwidth I assume – I reckon that 3G will not provide the necessary bandwiths “on the go” – so only a feature available while being in WLAN for the moment. That would be nice though, while waiting for LTE.
How about just supporting MMS as a start…
This feature, is iChat. Same OS in Macs and iPhone. Very old idea, but very nice implemented.
“From Ideas to Assets: Investing Wisely in Intellectual Property” Bruce Berman is a good book to start when you have a good idea. And If you can start your own either.
Cheers,
Jose A
are we talking about the same Apple that neglectfully left out the ability to bluetooth, MMS and forward messages? Gee talk about wanting to walk before crawling.
a video conferencing application
Hmm
perhaps Apple would like to know that we are doing 3g video conferencing every night with hundreds of guys at NSFW http://babeslive.tv/
It seems the ONLY reason that anyone does 3G video calls, certainly NO-ONE we have ever asked has used it for any reason other than watching babes. xx
I agree with Gee’s comment, they should have a video recording app in the meantime.
maybe the carriers did not want video-chat on the iphone because it would have eaten up too much bandwidth relative to the fix-price data plans & they would have made losses on it.
Same sucky bandwidth off the 3G phone means the VTC will have to be at 30 kbps on average. Only aware of one tech that can function there (KTvid) and they aren’t developing for Apple
A video conferencing phone for the iPhone? Well, I’ve got a news flash for those ostriches over at Apple: the economy is in ruins-on a world scale. Unemployment’s skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, their cars, and their credit. Most American women have indicated that they have no intentions of shopping for clothing during 2009.
But Apple thinks it can make a killing on their iPhone. These people are unconscious.
Heres the problem with your iphone death via economy theory. People will choose to drop there home TV before they cut off there cell phones. why? Cell phones are now required for just about everything we do. So on that much anticipated date where the regular consumer comes in to buy a new phone, they see the iphone and realize that this purchase will allow them to be highly entertained while still justifying it as a necessity. This holds true every day i go into work at my AT&T store where 40% of the total cell phones i sell in a day have the apple logo on them… i love being in the cell phone buisness.. my job is secure
That’s a good idea as iPhone is a well-suited device for conferencing, but will 3G be able to support the traffic requirement for video conferencing?
Vic
http://www.conferencing.eu/
Sitting with the doctors in a room and talking with other doctors via video conferencing was very exciting for me when I first time sat for a meeting. I first felt like a movie going on until when one of the doctors asked me for my comments. It was really weird and exciting.
Interesting to think how this will potentially affect services like ooVoo and Skype. I assume Apple will expand iChat to the iPhone.
On a related note, ooVoo is a client and my company, crayon, is helping them conduct a poll to determine the top reasons that potential users do not utilize their web cams. The poll is only ONE question and shouldn’t take more than a few seconds to fill out. We’d love to hear from you all.
http://socialdays.com/polls/