Apple guys do keep themselves busy thinking up new ways how to improve their iPhone OS software. And Apple’s patent applications give us a glimpse of how they may go about it. If this load of recently filed Apple patents become a reality, your iPhone may become a perfect tool for spies soon, with real world object identification, faces recognition, voice alteration, and text filtering, among other things.
Today a new batch of Apple’s patent applications surfaced, showing us some more interesting things that may come with your next major iPhone OS update.
- Real World Object Identification
The coolest feature potentially headed to a future iPhone near you is the live object identification technology. By using any combination of your iPhone’s camera, RFID sensors, barcode readers and the like, you can literally point your iPhone at a product on a store shelf and have the Apple Phone fetch product information. Alternatively, you can just search the object up in Google. It’s not like it’s hard to read a tag or enter a name.
- Face Detection and Recognition
After implementation, face recognition capabilities can be used to control the operation of the device – controlling access privileges and restrictions, deciding whether to put a device into a sleep mode, etc. Similar to the face recognition feature in iPhoto, this can be used for security access.
- Text Message Filtering
In this patent application Apple describes methods for filtering and controlling various text based communications via your iPhone. This filtering can be applied to outgoing and incoming e-mails, text, MMS, IM and other messages. The text control app can be set up alter the objectionable text (e.g. – swear words in an e-mail app), or to help your kid lean foreign language, by making him send e-mails in it.
- Smarter Messaging Interface
There are also couple of patent applications that describe the ways to make your overall messaging/communication experience easier.
One of them is related to multiple recipient messages, e.g. you send a message to your work team and not all the messages get delivered. After a preset time interval the messaging app checks the status of message delivery. If some messages have not been delivered, it alerts you and then provides an interface to easily resend a message to those who did not get it via the same or different means.
Another application is designed to help you deal better with unread messages. Apple thinks that if you have some unread messages from a person you are about to contact (call or send a message to him); you might want to at least look at them before initiating contact. And that’s exactly what this app does – compares your unread messages, e-mails, voicemails, etc; to the info of a person you are about to contact and informs you if you have some unread messages from him sitting on your phone.
In addition to checking the contact info, the message app can also check for certain keywords – e.g. the name of a project you are writing about and alert that you have some unread messages relating to it.
- Changes Voice Output in Your iPhone
And then there is a patent application that describes the possibility of altering audio output from your iPhone.
There may be a multiple reasons you’d want to do this. This application can be useful but also disadvantageous. Regardless, it is how you will use the application to maximize the iPhone’s capabilities.
More of the complied list of iPhone patent applications at Unwired View.
Look, if my school did this when I was in college, I would have actually attended lectures a lot more frequently than I did. Seriously. Perhaps that was what Abilene Christian University was aiming for in the first place when they decided to give the students a choice between the iPhone and the iPod Touch. And yes, the lucky collegians get them for free.
A rumor debunked? I think not. A few days ago, news circulated that 
If you’ve been buying applications from the App Store ’til now, better hope Apple doesn’t consider it anything bad or risk getting it wiped out of your phone. Yep, an issue raised recently has something to do with Apple erasing already installed applications on working Apple iPhone 3G units.
