A new Apple
patent has been found that will assuredly warms the hearts (and hands) of many iPhone users currently enduring a cold winter. Originally filed a day before the iPhone's June 28, 2007 launch, it details a glove with a thin, electrically conductive, "anti-sticky" inner layer that is able to function with a capacitive touchscreen. It also suggests the glove could have apertures on the fingertips for opening and closing the more protective outer layer. Of course, the concept is far from new -- just do a quick Google search for "iPhone gloves" to see a wide variety of choices -- and Apple doesn't really dabble in this sort of iPhone / iPod accessory, but if Phil keeps his hands in his pockets for the first half of the
Macworld keynote, we're gonna start to get ideas.
[Via
Apple Insider; thanks, Shawn]
posted Jan 2nd 2009 2:16PM
For some reason, i think apple is trying way to hard stuff.. i see no use in these
Maybe you should give a visit to Canada then.
When it's -30c (windchill -45) you really really don't want to take off your gloves to dial a number.
@linumax
Maybe canada should consider a phone that doesnt require you to wear gloves
*require you to take off your gloves... botched joke, i'll low rank my self and see my way to the exit.
The use is: some small company in the cold parts of USA (like Syracuse, etc.) starts producing simple gloves with ability to operate the touchscreen. Not only iPhone, just any. If you read the actual patent, it is called "High tactility glove system", not an "iPhone system".
Then Apple lawyers appear from nowhere and sue the heck out of a small business.
As much as I hate evil patent/trademark troll companies that go for individuals or small businesses, I hate the stupid patent system in USA!
Now tell me that Apple lawyers won't do that! They did that all that time!
/gasp/
True, Apple is getting evil with all these Patents
@Ray
Maybe Apple should develop a touch phone that navigates with any fabrics.
Also, I just hope this trend does not come down to "iPhone undies" (Swipe it real good)
@linumax
Maybe you should consider that just because it's -30c where you're at, it's not the same temperature for the rest of Canada. It's 1c and sunny where I'm at in Vancouver. We don't need this glove.
@ Linumax
Nobody in the Northwest Territories has an iPhone.
@roach
you just conveniently forgot about the cold snap we had last month, did you?... maybe looking outside and seeing the snow on the ground will remind you of it...
hey, it's snowing outside right now too!...
Made out of a signle sheet of cotton?
It's the fabric of our lives!
Dang, I was hoping Ben Heck had fit an iphone into a glove, screen on the backhand and qwerty rocognition based on finger position!
Oh well, maybe next time...
This has already been done..
http://www.dotsgloves.com/
It's been done before...
it was called the Nintendo Power Glove
I hope those guys have patented their design. It will simply be a winfall if they did. Just imagine keeping 15% of Apple's profit for every pair of glove they sell. WOOOOHOOOOOOO.
Or, those guys will be banging their heads at the wall.
Yes, too bad Dots Gloves couldn't supply most of their orders and had to cancel the majority of them. I had the wool ones on order for like 2 months before they offered to cancel and refund my money. I currently use fingerless gloves which allow me to use capacitive touchscreens like those at ATMs and on the iPhone, but I'd rather have my fingers completely covered in this bitter northeast cold. :)
My bicycling gloves have leather palms and fingertips and they work with trackpads, I'm not sure if that'd work with an Iphone touchscreen but I'd imagine it would.
Nope. The capacitive touchscreen on the iPhone requires something capable of inducing a change in an electrical current. Leather gloves won't do it.
Is this thing really necessary? I've come to think many of apple's recent inventions sound more like bunch of overkills that are designed for spoiled kids.
This would be useful for any screen of this type. As someone said above, when you're outside and it's -5C and you want to use your device, these would be nice. Hopefully they come in other colors besides white...
i guess if you can stand looking like a corporate-sucking mime so you don't catch a chill on your fingy-wingies. seriously, people are turning into babies about this stuff.
electronics generally aren't even made to operate below 0c, so when you can't make a call i suppose you could wave down a cab with your girlish gloves.
electronics not designed to work below freezing? You can't possibly be that dense, can you?
""anti-sticky" inner layer"---i guess its for single guys.
Or single girls..think about it!
P.S. you think that just because guys aren't single that they lose love for themselves?
I guess you are right in both cases.
Another chance for Apple to rip you off.
How much do we have to pay for firmware updates?
ok all bloggers bend over ,time for your yearly check up.
http://www.engadget.com/2006/01/04/tavo-gloves-for-the-ipod/
o....k....
multiply the price of the gloves in the above link by 2, stick an Apple logo on the top and there you have it! Another quality Apple accessory! -__-
No. And a [ - ] button for you for contributing 0 on http://www.engadget.com/
That's not a glove, IT'S A SEVERED HAND! Apple is going to kill you!
At first glance, I thought so too.
OMGZ! Apple's gonna cut my finger off!!11!!one11!!!
So, will I be able to control iPhone without touching the touchscreen? Or Apple just starts selling clothes? Either is fanny :)
what happened to voice dial on phones?
Now would this be considered a smartglove,.? Get it smartphone,iPhone. But wait 3 people in earlier blog said iPhone is no longer a smartphone like glide .
Technically speaking... I believe it would be called the Apple iGlove. But what the hell. iGlove you, uGlove me, we are bunch of sucker consumereessss.
That looks like those photoshopped fingers from 4chan... yes, the jawless fish ones.
I guess apple hasn't heard of the "North face E-Tip Gloves"
They better not be white...
How bout... Inventing a damn device that lets you use gloves? huh huh huh? lol. These Apple folk and their silly inventions...
Are the wrinkles on that thing patented too?
If I pick my nose with one of the gloves will it short out the gizmos?
Use a tissue, not your expensive gloves.
Not all touch-screens (and laptop trackpads) have this issue with gloves. If you have a Nokia 5800, you can operate the touchscreen with whatever you're wearing, including any pair of normal gloves. There are probably a few other touchscreen phones where this is possible.
You'd have trouble with mitts, though.
ANY resistive touch screen will work with gloves.
this is an area in which capacitive is, unfortunately, behind.
I already have a pair of these - North Face E-Tip gloves. I have them right here. Just the thumb and index finger, though.
This is where Survival of the Fittest should come into play.
Even I can force myself to wait to play Texas Hold'em on the iPhone until I am in an environment where there IS NO DANGER OF FROSTBITE.
I see the demand for a product like this from Apple being extremely limited, not only because substitutes already exist but also that the idea simply isn't that good. I expect to see a revision of the ageing Mac Mini to distract customers while Apple expand their phone lineup.
Anyone else so familiar with their iphone OS that they don't need to look at the screen to do simple navigation? On the go I do 90% of my control in my coat pocket.
This must me the greatest invention since the ice cream glove.
I swear, some one always beats me to this stuff. Anyway, here's the YouTube link to Ali G's Ice Cream Glove:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkuOuxRD1Bc
[insert winter/sex joke]
u gotta be kiddin me, this is brilliant! apple has done it again! (jk)
The North Face already makes these gloves
they are awesome, and are I LOVE my pair I have.
got them at sports authority, and they are awesometastic to say the least.
why patent what is already on the market?
is that even legal?
wait, do these gloves give me free hand jobs?
Ah, but the North Face ones have only the thumb and index finger with electro-conductive tips. These have also the middle finger. Apple's innovation here consists in giving you the middle finger :D.
I love my iPhone glove. It's so bad.
Fingerless gloves were invented a long time ago. They still work.
They still don't keep your fingers warm.
The ones with the mitten cover do.
"warmer hands-on experience" I see what you did there.
Macworld SF 2009: Oh, and there's one more thing... INSANELY GREAT GLOVES!
What's function 224 extended by itself do?
it already exists http://www.dotsgloves.com/
I got it..How about adding some REAL bottons to the iphone...common could they design their phone different from their ipod touch? Who wants (since the 2g Ipod Touch) a half-ass ipod touch and a half-ass phone??
So, I'm guessing as long as I keep making them as projects for my friends and family, I don't have to worry about offending any patents? I mean, c'mon. I was the coolest gift-giver this year after throwing together one for my fiancee... Must be fun to create a necessity and then patent the ability to develop a product to fill that necessity.
The iphone was released on the 29th not the 28th
Oh boy! An electric glove! Nothing new, and it should be rejected like MS' application was. Shame on you Apple.
To quote Apple (channeling OJ through Johnnie Cochrane): "If it doesn't fit, you *still* remit!"
It sorta looks like Dr. Seuss's gruvulous glove. "Then he hides what you paid him away in his snuvv, his secret strange hole in his gruvulous glove." - The Lorax, Dr. Seuss
Lulz
i can't wait to spend $100 on those!
First, this is just a patent APPLICATION (stop calling them patents when they aren't... this has the legal effect of someone shouting "dibs!").
Second, this is hardly new, especially as of 2007 when this application was filed. I don't think Apple has a chance of actually getting this patent.
Great, now price the glove at $150 and you have your typical apple product.
http://iPodTouchScene.com
Or you could knit up a pair of these:
http://knittingjuju.wordpress.com/2009/01/18/iphone-mitts/
Free pattern..