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An IM Patent for the iPhone?
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."
You can tell that Apple is still the same company they have always been when they are patenting functionality that is already on most modern cell phones and is noticably absent from the iPhone.
So not only is Apple late bringing this feature to market, but they are trying to patent something which has prior art in products which are already competing against their own.
Bravo Steve Jobs!
*slow hand clap*
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."
Forgive me, maybe it's my geezerhood speaking, but I don't understand why anybody would want IM on a phone in the first place. Text messages yes, for if (say) the girl you're calling is in a movie or at the OBGYN or somewhere where she can't take a call right now, but IM? That's INSTANT message.
Why would you IM when you could more easily and cheaply just talk? English class maybe?
*wanders off muttering about foolish young people...*
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Just imagine the fun when people start trying to say that.
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.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Back in the day, you used to have to do something innovative to get a patent...
Since it's a methods patent and not a design patent, it could be (not saying it is) for a particularly novel way of sending IM over phone that hasn't been previously done. Multitouch commands to send IMs and change windows, or an IM client that can flawlessly transition from edge to 3g to wifi or something.
But you're right, it could just be trolling. We'll find out!
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?