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An IM Patent for the iPhone?

Posted by timothy on from the could-b-could-b dept.

Ian Lamont writes "Apple has filed a patent for IM on portable devices, which could mean that it's getting ready to launch an IM client for the iPhone. The filing is titled 'Portable Electronic Device for Instant Messaging', and covers methods for sending, receiving, and viewing ongoing conversations. The proposed GUI is similar to Apple's current interface for SMS. As for why iChat wasn't enabled for the iPhone earlier, there's some interesting background and analysis here, which also includes a discussion of AIM for the iPhone. IM also came up in the discussions last year about the most-wanted features in iPhone 2.0."

5 of 71 comments (clear)

  1. Yet more patent abuse... by ZephyrXero · · Score: 3, Informative

    Hate to break it to ya Apple, but there have been cell phones with the ability to use services such as AIM for quite a few years now.

    --
    "A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
  2. Re:ASK SLASHDOT by calebt3 · · Score: 3, Informative

    WiFi hotspots make IM cheaper than text messaging.

  3. Re:You know it's Apple by kithrup · · Score: 2, Informative

    I found the patent via a Mac rumour site.

    The main point of difference appears to be the touch screen, but I admit I'm not great at reading patents.

    Note that this is also just a patent application; it hasn't been granted yet.

  4. Hmmmm .... by gstoddart · · Score: 3, Informative

    So, the usual question about such patents arises.

    How the heck can you patent "a method of doing a well-known operation in a slightly new context"?

    The issues are the same -- communications protocols, keeping track of sent and received messages, message sequencing, etc. Big deal, they're now doing it on an iPhone. All of the other stuff is just more of the same on top of a different platform that still needs to do the exact same things as other platforms.

    Unless I'm missing something, this patent will likely be describing something well known, and enumerating a few points where it's slightly different and therefore is revolutionary rather than an obvious outgrowth of previous things.

    Much silliness here.

    Cheers

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  5. Re:ASK SLASHDOT by snowraver1 · · Score: 2, Informative

    There is a big different. SMS uses the control channel of the cell tower, where as IM uses the normal data channels. The control channel is limited in bandwidth, where the data channel can accomodate much, much more data.

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