back to article UGH... opposable thumbs are so tiresome! Why not mount your iPhone on your face?

Tired of having to move your arm slightly and make a tedious grabbing action each and every time you pick up your iPhone? Apple has the answer: a wireless display that enables you to mount your device on your face, according to a recently discovered patent. Apple filed the patent for a "head-mounted display system" to "allow …

  1. BongoJoe

    This would literally send me cross-eyed.

    I have no idea what the average user's focal length is but anything shorter than the distance to the end of my nose isn't going to work for me.

    1. SuccessCase

      This is a stealth patent. The diagram is but one, probably quite deliberately crap, embodiment. The claims are the important part and will be as broad as possible covering other uses such as VR. The point of a stealth patent is precisely that it covers a whole range of possibilities whilst not obviously pointing competitors to the possibilities. Indeed Google Cardboard provides the perfect example of how such a patent can be valuable. I think stealth patents are pretty underhand, because the point of the patent system is to make an invention obvious and documented as part exchange for the protection of the court, but The Register, always seeking to find the most negative angle has lead them to miss the fact that this stealth patent is precisely about VR. All companies engage in filing stealth patents by the way. It is simply to a companies advantage to do so. So by all means be negative, but the real negative angle story here is about the use of stealth patents. This is in fact far from a "crap" patent as the Register wish to suggest (though many would like to suggest all patents are crap, this view even seems to be spreading to hardware patents).

      From the claims:

      "The device of claim 1, wherein the optical subassembly is operative to adjust a resolution of the at least one image frame to compensate for how close the user's eyes are to the display screen of the portable electronic device. "

      So one of the dependent claims, refers to an optical sub-assembly, precisely as you have in VR goggles. It refers to the assembly adjusting "at least one" image. That is the patent attorney making the claim as broad as possible whilst firmly ensuring it covers optical assemblies that can adjust TWO images - e.g. one for each eye, e.g. precisely what is done by project Cardboard.

      That's how you need to read Patents. Don't read the words, they are frequently deliberately obtuse. Read the logic.

      When The Register talk of Apple following Google, that is only from the point of view of what the public see (another thing The Register consistently fail to appreciate). The fact this patent was filed in 2008, if Google or Samsung haven't filed one earlier, it pretty surely means Apple R&D are already looking at this. Companies like Apple, Google and Samsung have teams of patent attorneys ensuring all patentable material the R&D dept are working on is patented. If this patent is passed by the examiner, then you can be pretty sure Google/Samsung submitted no earlier filings or they will be able to block it.

      1. DropBear
        Facepalm

        Patent trolls FTW

        In other words, this is yet again patenting "View-Master, only on a computer on the internet with a smartphone"... Yeah, real smooth...

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Re: Patent trolls FTW

          I believe there was prior art from Not the Nine O'Clock news where Mr Atkinson demonstrated a cunning headmounted system to allow the deaf to know the phone was ringing.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sure to be a hit

    Google Glass was doomed to failure whereas this, being from The Fruity Ones, could be The Next Big Thing.

    1. Chris G

      Re: Sure to be a hit

      Compared to this Googlass was way cooler

      and I didn't like that either!

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Only one thing to say...

    "Blinded by the light, revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night..."

    © Bruce Springsteen

    1. TRT Silver badge

      Re: Only one thing to say...

      I was thinking more "And don't copy the copyright, I got em in my sights, blinding with the lights, taken to dizzy new heights. Blinded by the lights, blinded by the lights. Dizzy new heights."

    2. Rimpel
      Headmaster

      Re: Only one thing to say...

      partly © Manfred Mann:

      'Manfred Mann's Earth Band's recording of the song features several changed lyrics. The most prominent change is in the chorus, where Springsteen's "cut loose like a deuce" is replaced with "revved up like a deuce"'

  4. CaptainBanjax

    Awesome.

    More surface area to hit when we punch iTards in the face.

    1. TRT Silver badge

      Re: Awesome.

      Now the rounded corners thing becomes clear.

      1. VinceH

        Re: Awesome.

        I was thinking more that this might be the real reason the watch is called the Apple Watch, and not the iWatch.

        This could carry the iWatch name - although (despite being a fully paid up member of the anti-Apple club) I think it would probably have been more suitable for Google to have used the name instead of Glass.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    > according to a recently discovered patent.

    Not that recent given that it was reported on nearly five years ago by this very organ.

    I understand the newsworthy part of this is that the application has now been granted because the patent office fell off the wagon again scored some high grade acid received a blow to the head finished their thorough and professional review.

    1. phil dude
      Joke

      LOL thorough review!

      AC you should have used your screen name...then you could have chosen the joke icon....

      Unless it was your case?

      P.

      1. VinceH
        Facepalm

        Re: LOL thorough review!

        "Unless it was your case?"

        Er, you did read what he put in strike tags, didn't you?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Remote control?

    Surely some kind of tongue based control could be made to work? The pron industry would love the potential for that. Anyone suggesting that you'd need an abnormally long tongue for this to work may have a point for most normal people, but my advice would be to widen the subject matter of video clips you are watching. There are people who could do it. And how.....

    1. phil dude
      Paris Hilton

      Re: Remote control?

      I think that already exists. Although I am not sure it turns the TV on....

      P.

    2. Yugguy

      Re: Remote control?

      Gene Simmons has already put an order in.

    3. lucki bstard

      Re: Remote control?

      Now that would be an app

      'Improve your technique, practise during the morning commute and post your 'quickest time to the big O' on facebook (maybe a dating site even).

      If your in a relationship you could have a custom photo of your partner and just get some extra practise in......

      Hey honey I got the big O in 7 seconds on the bus today.. want a field test later?

  7. Tom 7

    Wrong way round

    surely the point is to show others you have the latest - no one uses them for the first few weeks they just wander around showing people they have a computer with phone (sic) capabilities.

  8. Simon Harris
    Meh

    Futurama...

    Surely Apple have just copied the cartoon and come up with the eyePhone.

  9. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

    Maybe you could implement peril-sensitive sunglasses this way ;-)

  10. This post has been deleted by its author

  11. Mark 85

    The Games People... er... Companies Play

    So Google has their's, Samsung just brought out a pair... and Apple trots out a patent. Lawsuits and lawyers at dawn and 10 paces.

  12. crayon
    FAIL

    So you don't need new and novel inventions to be granted a patent. You just need a bit of imagination about what products will be made in the near future and apply for a patent, then when someone actually MAKES a product that is vaguely similar to what's described in the patent the lawsuits starts flying.

  13. jai

    not likely in that format

    Jony Ive was quoted in New Yorker as saying they don't believe wearable tech should be on the face:

    When he later saw Google Glass, Ive said, it was evident to him that the face “was the wrong place.”

    http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/23/shape-things-come?currentPage=all

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