shamino

Apple presses on with headset that's an iPhone on your face

shamino

October 22

Yep. I built a Google Cardboard (this model no longer sold, but I paid $6 for it in 2021) device for my iPhone. It works great (as great as you can expect for $6) and is conceptually not very different from this patent application.

Yes, the Apple patent is more than just a mounting bracket and lens system, but ultimately, it's just holding a phone in front of your face in order to provide a VR interface. The rest is just window dressing.

Apple is trying to reinvent group audio chat with no cell or WiFi needed

shamino

July 31

jallison said:

There are also two levels of 'long range' in Bluetooth 5 - Coded Phy S2 and S8. They increase the range between handsets to ~100m.

Yes, but as with all things, there are tradeoffs.

The Coded Phy systems gain greater range and reliability through transmission of additional (quite a lot of) error-correcting data. So the overall bandwidth goes way down. The high-speed 2Mbps data rate has a range of about 80% of the "standard" 1Mbps rate. The Coded S2 PHY doubles the range, but cuts the bandwidth in half - to 500 kbps. Coded S8 doubles that range (4x the standard range), but reduces the bandwidth by another 75% - to 125 kbps.

Now, 125 kbps is sufficient for a voice call (voice land lines digitize to 56 kbps), but would that be enough for modern users who are used to the quality of a VoLTE call?

Apple is trying to reinvent group audio chat with no cell or WiFi needed

shamino

July 11

AppleZulu said:

I would be willing to bet a dollar to a donut that the devices would link directly using the iPhones' WiFi radios.

The article and the abstract of the patent say just that. The devices establish a connection over an ad-hoc Wi-Fi network, much like how AirDrop works.

rare comment said:

My vision was that one could create ad hoc voice groups in small geographies that allowed regular people to have the same sort of always on communications as you see for security teams (like in the movies, but in less exciting situations). My use case was for situations like crowds or walking with a group down a city street where, with noise cancellation, you could have a conversation without yelling or needing to stand right next to someone.

The patent has several diagrams of a hypothetical UI. See the collection of "Figure 6" drawings, and text starting from paragraph 95 (page 12).

From my quick scan of the text, they are describing a UI where you are an icon in the center of the screen. Surrounded by two circles, one representing the range within which you can detect people and open connections (e.g. Wi-Fi range), and an outer one representing the range within which you can detect people but not open ad-hoc network connections (e.g. Ultra Wideband range). Nearby people are presented as icons in locations corresponding to their distance and direction from you.

It then depicts you tapping on a person to initiate a conversation, the other person getting a confirmation, after which a connection is established. They seem to be describing a separate point-to-point ad-hoc network link for each such conversation.

They also depict connections over a public network to reach users further away than an ad-hoc network can reach, but without (I think) going through a central server. Basically a peer-to-peer Internet link.

It looks like they are deliberately not establishing multicast connections for group conversations, but are sticking with multiple unicast connections. Which probably makes sense since you may want to selectively add/drop people, have multiple private conversations, and permit roaming/handoff between networks as your peers move closer and further away.

If the UI for this feature is sufficiently, convenient, this could easily implement your vision.

How to connect just about any vintage Mac to a modern monitor

shamino

May 30

Just a nit to pick. The DIP switches on an Apple RGB-VGA adapter are not because of the sync mechanisms. Apple RGB provided sync in the same way that most analog monitors at the time do - either with separate pins (VGA style) or by multiplexing sync with the green signal.

The DIP switches exist because the DDC standard for plug-and-play monitors didn't exit at the time. Apple's monitors were all fixed-frequency, so the Mac needed to know the correct frequency and resolution used by the connected monitor - and you can't use a control panel if you can't see an image.

In order to avoid this chicken-and-egg scenario, there are three "sense" pins on the DE15 video connector. By connecting them to power, ground, or each other (possible with diodes), a monitor can identify itself. The DIP switches on the adapter is used to make these connections so you can tell the connected Mac what frequency/resolution you want to use with your monitor.