Apple iPhone: more patent secrets revealed

Apple says iPhone will include third party applications and a smaller iPhone device will be released soon.

It looks like Apple may open up the iPhone to third-party apps after all. The news came at an Apple shareholders' meeting held in Cupertino, California yesterday.

Steve Jobs was reluctant to include third party applications instead wanted to have only Apple developed applications so that iPhone will work flawlessly. But recently he said that Apple “is wrestling with” the idea of including third party applications in iPhone. This will be good news to Mac developers who feel left out for not being able to participate in iPhone development. Also Microsoft criticized the closed system of iPhone earlier. One developer said the reason Apple closed it to third party because it already builds in many applications making it unnecessary for other outside programs. However Apple can’t have all the programs from within, it will require too much resources and time.

It will be a smart move by Apple if they include third party like they do in Palm and Windows Mobile powered devices and concentrate more on the hardware.

Jobs also revealed that company executives had been playing with the iPhone "for months". And some of them like it so much don’t want to part it after testing the new iPhone.

Steve Jobs said they have a lot to learn in the mobile phone industry, more than 1 billion mobile phones have been sold last year, so it will be a big challenge for them. So they are concentrating heavily on iPhone and even delaying its main Apple Leopard launch in the process. He said developing new products is not easy as writing a check otherwise Microsoft would have great products.

The new patent application shows Apple might be developing a smaller iPhone in the future. Its patent application number 0070103454 shows a smaller iPhone device with dual touch screens as shown below. One with a multi touch interface for entering phone numbers, the other for viewing video. Its patent application is titled “Back-Side Interface for Handheld Devices”.

"An electronic device uses separate surfaces for input and output. One of the surfaces (e.g. the bottom) includes a force-sensitive touch-surface through which a user provides input (e.g. cursor manipulation and control element selection).

"On a second surface (e.g. the top), a display element is used to present information appropriate to the device's function (e.g. video information), one or more control elements and a cursor. The cursor is controlled through manipulation of the back-side touch-surface. The cursor identifies where on the back-side touch-surface the user's finger has made contact.

One can control the viewing side just by touching the back side and the cursor moves accordingly in the screen, once it reached the correct position, and then the user can press the back panel. It is innovative; Apple wants to miniaturize the iPhone by this way, having dual screens. It is sort of like Digital camera with an LCD Screen at the back and lenses in the front. It makes effective use of the both sides.