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Apple Considering Adding Contacts to iPhone Home Screen?

Seems a bit silly clogging up your home screen with contact icons. Patent? very silly.

Why don't they do it the way Nokia do (or is that patented) ? On a Nokia you just start typing the name of your contact on the home screen and they appear usually within three letters typed. Dead simple and easy to remember. You then click and get a menu of apps that are appropriate to that contact -Voice call, Internet call, SMS, email, IM...

LG also do something similar to the patent in that on their cheap smartphones they have a homescreen with avatars of the last four people you've been in contact with. Above each there's their last SMS or call details and you can click on them to reply/call. I imagine you could expand that to tweets, facebook and other apps too.

This seems to be classic Apple. Start with something simple that's great for most simple users that then falls apart for more complex demands. Examples - see the OSX Dock, TimeMachine, Dashboard, their mice.

The proximity based auto-contact add thing sounds scary. I did some stuff with a Bluetooth proximity tool called Consola ( http://www.consola.org/ ) about 4-5 years ago that served up text, mp3, pictures and video to passers-by at a show and it was a neat trick then before there were bluetooth transferable viruses.
 
It would be nice if you could use the lock screen as a 'upcoming dates' or something like that so you could see everything that is coming up on your calendar, view the headers of some emails/txt's without opening the lock screen and jumping in and out of programs.

That would be a huge productivity boost IMO.

I would love to see THAT in iPhone OS 4.
 
Screw this

If this is a way for companies to cram more advertising in our faces, then IMHO, screw that. Imagine you really need to make a phone call but you have to listen to an annoying Progressive ad first just because you're standing next to a local office. That would seriously piss me off.

It's bad enough that Google Ads have now taken over YouTube videos.
 
Two Circles at the top of the phone?

What are the two circles at the top of the phone for, one over the speaker and the other larger one to the left of it?
 
How about adding a list of pending appointments to the home screen, like my Blackjack II did. That was incredibly useful. Apple needs to remember that this is a phone/digital assistant first and a computer second.

And yeah, why do you need a patent for this when the OS is patented already?
 
partycentral said:
How about adding a list of pending appointments to the home screen, like my Blackjack II did. That was incredibly useful.

Apple needs to remember that this is a phone/digital assistant first and a computer second.
Click to expand...

"These [iPhones] are more like iPods than they are like computers.” - Jobs to NY Times, January 2007

iPods, not PDAs... :)

Sometimes I think Jobs is worried that iPhone owners will have user customizable homescreens that look like those on WinMo or any other kind of phone.

.
 
There needs to be a button like this for screen brightness. I adjust my brightness 4 or 5 times a day. Very frustrating.

Press brightness app and hold, slider bar appears, go up or down. Done. No settings navigation.
 
spydr said:
Bigger question is, is novel enough to be patent worthy? :confused:

Location based content delivery also sounds dated - wasn't there some sort of implementation with Starbucks a while back?
Click to expand...

would it really if it wasn't.
Surely a rejected Patent Application is as good a defence against a patent troll as and approved one.
Possibly even better, after all you don't have to defend it from anyone else.
 
MattInOz said:
would it really if it wasn't.
Surely a rejected Patent Application is as good a defence against a patent troll as and approved one.
Possibly even better, after all you don't have to defend it from anyone else.
Click to expand...

Huh? How is a rejected patent application a defense against anything? Even if you are granted a patent, practicing your own patent is no defense against infringing someone else's patent. A rejected patent application is completely worthless other than informing potential trolls that you are interested in the subject area and your products might operate that way (in cases where the method of operation isn't apparent from outside observation).
 
Nym said:
I really don't see real value in this patent.

IMO what Apple needs to implement ASAP is a decent LockScreen. The LockScreen as is right now is a waste of space where you see the time and show off your wallpaper.
I want dynamic data being thrown on my LockScreen so I can see it at a glance (Missed Calls, SMS, Email, and access to info from supporting 3rd party apps).

Example:
http://www.teehanlax.com/blog/2009/09/22/iphone-needs-a-new-home/
Click to expand...

I entirely agree. This should have been there since the beginning, or at least added along with Push Notifications. I love Apple products but I sometimes wonder how their brains work when it comes to what would be a good idea to improve on or add.
 
Looks like so many people want features that have been available on other platforms (notably Windows Mobile) for ages. So much for revolutionary phone. Apparently "different" does not always mean "revolutionary":D
 
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