Type of Article: MacTech Blog

Several Apple patents have appeared today at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Following is a summary of each.

Two patents involve battery technology. Patent number 20120153728 is for balancing voltages between battery banks and involves a system that that balances voltages between battery banks. The system includes battery banks, including a first bank and a second bank, and a first capacitor. William C. Athas and Thomas C. Greening are the inventors.

If Apple does indeed release its own HDTV (the rumored “iTV”) could it sport a Retina display? That seems likely. The Retina display introduced with the Retina display MacBook Pro is the future of displays at Apple, especially as pricing goes down.

By Greg Mills

Famous for pre-launching visionary vaporware products, still way back in the pipeline, that either don’t actually launch or have serious flaws that slowly become apparent, Microsoft did it again.  

Hopeful that the Windows fan boys would stir up iPad killer anticipation and raise Microsoft’s fortunes, CEO Steve Ballmer showed off yet another prototype tablet. Despite declaring Apple’s iPad’s market a “rounding error sized challenge to Windows,” Microsoft now sees that Apple is indeed taking significant business sales away from them and their partners.  

Several Apple patents have appeared today at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Following is a summary of each.

° Patent number 8205157 involves methods and graphical user interfaces for conducting searches on a portable multifunction device. In accordance with some embodiments, a graphical user interface on a portable multifunction device with a touch screen display includes: an application interface of an application that includes an application interface region with an edge; and a search input area for entering a search query for the application.

The Yankee Group (http://ww.yankeegroup.com) says that tablets in use in the U.S. will climb from 25 million in 2011 to more than 134 million in 2015, with sales eventually eclipsing those of personal computers.

Of course they will. Tablets are less expensive and serve different functions for the most part. Smartphones will outsell tablets, but that doesn’t bode ill for the tablet market. We’re talking (no pun intended) apples and oranges.