According to the popular Mac site Macrumors.com, Apple has filed a couple of patents that point to significant evolution in the iPhone hardware. The iPhone has been criticized since release for lagging behind other ‘smart’ phones, a claim they hope to refute with the impending OS 3.0 release. The new patents point to first-in-market technologies that could further expand the IQ of Apple’s juggernaut.
The first patent deals with new accelerometer-based motion technology that would allow the iPhone interface to change as the phone senses various activities. The patents suggest that the phone could determine whether you are jogging or performing other physical activity and adjust the user interface to include gestures for functions such as answering phone calls or changing tracks in iTunes. The images filed also show a transition to enlarged contact lists during motion, making sifting through contacts a bit easier for a shaky hand.
Other interesting features point to video conferencing with the addition of a user-side video camera. Video recording of any kind remains unavailable on the iPhone until OS 3.0 later this summer. Of course all of this is speculation, but the patents do give us some small window into the research coming out of Cupertino.
Source: Macrumors
