Apple probably isn’t going to be content until there’s an Apple logo made of smart ink tattooed somewhere sensitive. The first stop on the road to the iTat? A collection of sensors you can strap to your stuff and yourself and use to monitor it at all times.
The mildly creepy patent is essentially Apple’s take on The Internet of Things, the widely held belief that the next tech revolution will be about jamming chips and WiFi radios into every single appliance, and being able to remotely control them to your precise specifications. Apple sees it largely as a method for finding your keys:
The system would link items — like a wallet, purse, personal data assistant, personal computer, watch, credit card, keys, and cell phone — using sensors that can track and record changes in environment and condition.
“The invention relates to sensing systems monitoring applications in sports, shipping, training, medicine, fitness, wellness, and industrial production,” the patent application reads.
The sensors themselves would measure a variety of things: Temperature, humidity, and chemical composition are just a few of the suggestions in the patent. You can also use them to measure health data, provided you didn’t already own a Fuel band or one of the litany of other health gizmos that can sync to your phone already on the market.
And if somebody forcibly removes them, you’ll be alerted immediately to deploy the iDrone from 50,000 feet. OK, so there is no iDrone. Yet.
While we understand the appeal of this, at the same time we are wondering if giving your health information, not to mention strapping what amounts to a big pile of data trackers to all your stuff, is really the greatest idea, and whether people will, not unreasonably, be worried about privacy.
On the other hand, this has also literally never stopped Apple fans before, so, really, why should it now?