Some Apple patents are for things that become products and other ideas are patented to just, well, patent them. Then there’s the revelation that the mothership owns a patent covering the concept of an iPad Smart Cover Display — Apple’s magnetic and flexible cover used as a second display and even touch-based input device.
Here’s the nut of the Smart Cover Display concept from Free Patents Online:
An accessory device arranged to communicate with a host device by way of a communication channel, the host device comprising a host device display arranged to present visual information, the accessory device comprising: a flexible flap having a size and shape in accordance with the host device display, wherein at least a portion of the flexible flap is covered by a flap display configured to present visual information; and a connecting portion, the connecting portion arranged to provide at least a communication channel arranged to convey information between the host device and the accessory device wherein at least some of the information is presented visually on the flap display.
Additional sections of the patent — created by Fletcher R. Rothkopf, a Los Altos, CA-based inventor — cover concepts like using the Smart Cover Display as a touch-input area, but the fundamental idea is to use the space as a display.
Too stupid to consider or is this super brilliant? Any idea in Apple’s hands has the potential to be the latter and who wouldn’t like an iPad with twice the touchable area…
What’s your take?
via PCWorld