Finally, some news that actually has real substance to it. The patent for the highly rumoured “3G iPhone” has finally surfaced, and thus, a hurricane of information has been unleashed. You can view the patent by clicking here, but it is pretty lengthy, so we’re going to take you through all significant things here.
First of all, pretty much all of the features that we’ve been hearing about are mentioned in the document; 3G, GPS, even video chat and IM – it’s all there. Does this mean that it’s now confirmed and not rumour? Technically, no. Apple could list features in the patent that did not make it to the final device, but this is highly, highly unlikely. So if you want our verdict: yes, all of these features are now confirmed. If the features are listed in the patent, that means that they have at the very least TESTED the features out on the phone at some point in time. We can’t think of any major reasons why Apple would remove any one of those features. Now let’s take a look at a few of the less significant mentions…
Instant Messaging Module – probably iChat, we presume?
Blogging Module – this is an interesting one… Have Apple created a first-party blogging application?
Search Module – again, we’re not sure, but this sounds like Finder on the Mac, except for the iPhone.
Another interesting quote from the patent is “an optical sensor is located on the front of the device so that the user’s image may be obtained for video conferencing while the user views the other video conference participants on the touch screen display” – again, this just adds to the solidty that video conferencing is really coming to the iPhone. Now… This plus the IM module detailed above really makes us think twice about the leaked photos from yesterday – they may actually be real.
One thing is for sure – we’ll find out tomorrow!
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