Apple Receives Patent For Accessing Sets of Apps With Different Passcodes 156
wabrandsma writes, quoting Apple Insider "The technology, detailed in a patent awarded to Apple on Tuesday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, deals with so-called 'access inputs' that determine what apps, device services, and functions can be accessed by a user. Apple's U.S. Patent No. 8,528,072 for a 'Method, apparatus and system for access mode control of a device,' describes a system that creates user access modes guarded by predetermined gesture inputs."
Reading the patent, it appears Apple managed to patent allowing access to some programs without a passcode from the lock screen of a device while protecting others, so e.g. you can quickly swipe to make a phone call or control your music, but have to enter a code to read your email or access your word processor documents.
Some day .. (Score:5, Funny)
I'll get a patent for posting on an Apple story.
then y'all will be screwed!
Re:Some day .. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Some day .. (Score:5, Funny)
Only the top left corner of each slashdot story is round though. Don't forget to specify that.
Whoa! You posted to a slashdot story! East Texas here I come! [bbc.co.uk]
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Re:Some day .. (Score:4, Insightful)
So you don't think there is enough prior art ?
Prior art never stopped a suit being filed by a shi^H^H^Hgood lawyer.
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That is not how first to file works.
First to file only comes into play when more than one entity files for the same patent. At that point the first one to get to the patent office wins. My preference would have been if two folks try to patent the same thing it is considered obvious enough to not get patent protection.
Prior art still applies as it always had.
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My preference would have been if two folks try to patent the same thing it is considered obvious enough to not get patent protection.
Sorry, that doesn't make sense to me. Everyone knows there's a market niche, but nobody could make it work, and then suddenly
-- two people happen to come up with two different ways of doing it - or they THOUGHT they were different, until the examiner compared both patents.
-- a group was working on it and had a falling-out about credit or something.
My point is there could be a legitimate race involved.
Of course this assumes that a patent is only granted for demonstrating a working solution, not just a
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Prior art no longer matters: FIRST TO FILE wins.
Over a century ago Thomas Edison understood this, taking out patents in the US and Europe on work pioneered by others. He right bastard, but for over 100 years we still can't seem to get the patent system to work for the People, only for the weasels who steal others ideas and then arm themselves with lawyers
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Sure that's prior art (though I doubt Blackberry was first with it.) But it's prior art that's listable within the patent, not prior art that excludes the patent. This patent adds more to that idea. It adds configurable, multiple levels of access. And the idea that different unlock gestures will not only give access to a particular app, but actually start the app, possibly in a certain mode.
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the correct usage in this case is "all y'all"
Prior art (Score:2, Insightful)
Yet another trivial and redundant patent...
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no kidding my current HTC Rezound has the ability to put apps on the lock screen to view without unlocking the phone. Otherwise unlock for full access.
Prior Art indeed.
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Prior Art indeed.
Which is completely unrelated to the patent in question so it is in no way prior art.
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no kidding my current HTC Rezound has the ability to put apps on the lock screen to view without unlocking the phone. Otherwise unlock for full access.
Prior Art indeed.
Maybe they could patent a phone which would let you have access to things if you bribed it
I live a poor, miserable existence, but once the NSA found out I had a mobile phone, it's been living like George, Prince of Cambridge
Re: Prior art (Score:2)
Version 4.3 of the same software on a tablet can even have restricted user profiles with own postcode that can access a whilst of applications.
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Yet another trivial and redundant patent...
So how would New Zealand's anti-software patent handle this - Is this an ordinary sort of process simply moved to software or is it revolutionary technology, worthy of a patent (I know what it smells like, but to me it's about as revolutionary as the guard shouting "AUS PASSE!" in the old Castle Wolfenstein, where some guards don't care (or can be bribed.))
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I wish I would get a dollar every time someone shouts "trivial" in forums regarding patents.
I would have enough money to buy me a McLaren 12C Spider in a jiffy.
Listen up. If everything is trivial I have I real good advice for you : patent it yourself and become rich.
Everyone shouting "trivial" is victim of hindsight bias.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindsight_bias
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Passwords on accounts don't stop you accessing the software. Nor does it prevent access to apps that don't have a natural concept of accounts. Nor does it have the concept of groups or hierarchies of apps which are accessed with different unlock procedures.
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Nope. This more like a boss-screen, one gesture gets you to one simple layer of apps, a different one gets you deeper into the phone. Unlock one profile for when the cops demand access, another for normality could be one use.
Innovative it ain't as we've had limited/full/admin access on computers for ages based on passwords, e.g UAC, sudo etc.
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"Everyone" is not a victim of hindsight bias.
Trivialness (i.e. whether something is self-evident) is an important test. Some things are trivial and must be treated as such.
The novelty (i.e. whether something is new to the world) is another important test.
This patent fails on both of these aspects, I won't detail how since dozens of others have already done so in this thread.
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Examples?
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"Examples?"
Examples of what?
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The "preexisting things" he's referring to.
like different users? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:like different users? (Score:4, Insightful)
So basically they re-invented having different accounts having access to different apps. Only its on a mobile device, and it deserves a patent?!
Well, yeah. Maybe you haven't noticed the furious nerd rage over the past, I don't know... FIFTEEN YEARS about stupid patent law? Anyway... a patent was recently awarded because someone figured out how to use the speaker/mic combo on a mobile phone to transmit data acoustically. You know, like... through the air and stuff. For credit card transactions. You might well guess... they got a patent.
Nevermind that this technology debuted in the 1960s, pretty much right after the second computer was built and someone got the idea that they should be able to exchange data... and look, here's this phone thingie...
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Anyway... a patent was recently awarded because someone figured out how to use the speaker/mic combo on a mobile phone to transmit data acoustically. You know, like... through the air and stuff. For credit card transactions. You might well guess... they got a patent.
Nevermind that this technology debuted in the 1960s, pretty much right after the second computer was built and someone got the idea that they should be able to exchange data... and look, here's this phone thingie...
I'm pretty sure they weren't using mobile phones in the 1960s for communicating credit card transactions, and the acoustic couplers they used were really sensitive to environmental noise, hence the data rates measured in baud. Maybe - and I'm going out on a limb here - just maybe, this is a different implementation than they had in the 1960s?
"But the basic idea is the same!" you cry... to which I point out that in every Slashdot story when someone talks about patenting an idea, people rush to correct them
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For patent protection the implementation and idea must both be new. E.g. I can make a new machine that makes bullets. I can't patent the generalised process of making bullets or bullets themselves, these ideas and physical implementations already existed. I can patent the specifics of my implementation of a new machine though, because there are very different new ideas that have gone into my machine.
Software patents are by definition ideas. There is nothing physical there, only lines of thought transcribed
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It sounds rather a lot like an Access Control List to me. I fail to see what's new about it
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Purely to play devil's advocate, because I agree that it sounds like a stupid patent ...
If you get access to a different set of apps based on which passcode you enter, it's more like a context aware ACL -- when you're fully logged in you get everything, when you're 'partly' logged in you only get a subset.
Of course, I'm pretty sure the last release of Android lets you have profiles in which your kids can only access some of the apps, and you can access all of them. So I'm not entirely certain this is any d
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Purely to play devil's advocate, because I agree that it sounds like a stupid patent ...
If you get access to a different set of apps based on which passcode you enter, it's more like a context aware ACL -- when you're fully logged in you get everything, when you're 'partly' logged in you only get a subset.
Of course, I'm pretty sure the last release of Android lets you have profiles in which your kids can only access some of the apps, and you can access all of them. So I'm not entirely certain this is any different than that.
But it can definitely be likened to something like sudo, which we've had for years. This doesn't sound like it's much more than things we already have, but with a tablet. Which pretty much sums up my opinion of software patents -- a system and methodology for doing something exactly like a well-known real world analog, but with a computer.
That would assume that you are logged out when your phone's lock screen is displayed. If that were the case, then you wouldn't receive all of the various notices and alerts from your account. But, since you do, then you are still logged in. It would be more akin to having to access a higher level password in an application to access certain functions. The user id hasn't changed, just the access level. For normal use, these functions are available (receive calls, control music, etc.) To access other appli
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Of course, my problem with that is we're treating gestures like they're different from a password or any authentication token.
I'm of the opinion that password, fingerprint, security token, gesture are all substantively reduced to "sequence of bits which can be used to verify access".
So if the USPTO gave a patent to do this with each of these approaches as a separate patent, we'd end up with a
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It would be more akin to having to access a higher level password in an application to access certain functions.
sudo make me a sandwich http://xkcd.com/149/ [xkcd.com]
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Sounds more specifically like Role Based Access Control [wikipedia.org] (RBAC). You can define RBAC with a Subject (identity-based access control with roles) or without a subject. In the latter case authentication is tied to authorising a role, rather than authenticating a subject who has (or can authorise) a role.
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It sounds rather a lot like an Access Control List to me. I fail to see what's new about it
Because Apple said it's new, that's what.
Mobile is different (Score:2)
Mobile and cloud computing present special challenges. Google is a particular problem for me. Consider chromebook. I have one password, my google password, and that logs me into the computer but it also gets my e-mail, and my google wallet. Anyone can remotely access my google docs if they have my password. Even worse is that I use my google mail account for all my banking and purchases (amazon) and other sites. So anyone who gets in can do a password reset on those, which will send the new password t
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This is off topic but your points about having "all your eggs in one basket" are well taken.
I ran in to a similar problem about a year ago when I lost control of a couple of domains that I no longer used. I had been using those domains for years, tinkering with various Google services and whatnot and unfortunately for me, I didn't unlink those domains from those services before they were picked up by someone else.
Over a period of about a week, I was in a battle to wrest control of my Google
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I think the novel idea here is that if you enter different passwords into same account you get different functionality. Especially useful on shared home iPad or computer or tv where you don't have need for separate accounts. Don't know if there is any prior art to this, but it sounds like a clearly different compared to user accounts in traditional sense.
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..they're separate accounts just with different word for "account".
or they're just accounts with secret names and no password.
or they're just passwords which protect certain functionality.
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It certainly didn't seem like a terribly novel idea to me when I was writing code to implement it a few years back. The project never went anywhere but, it seemed to me to just be the most obvious way to implement a "duress" password that could be used to set off an alarm. Slightly clever but, I assumed it had already been done since it was so freaking obvious.
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I seem to recall at least one Star Trek TOS episode where giving an alternative countersign alerted the Enterprise crew that you were in some kind of trouble such as being held under duress. Isn't that the same thing, more or less?
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I don't remember the episode, but if there was one, it was likely where the kernel of the idea made it into my wetware. Of course, its not even original for them. There was a controversy just a few years back where some US soldiers were photographed with Hillary Clinton and one or two of them (I forget) was showing a hand signal which is intended to convey that same message.
In fact, looking for the article on that shows that this idea is so unoriginal, there is a wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/w [wikipedia.org]
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I was watching "Men that Made America" this weekend. It was covering JP Morgan and how he forced George Westinghouse to give up his rights to A/C by threatening him with patent litigation after Westinghouse (and Tesla) won the Niagara Falls power generation project. Westinghouse was 100% in the right...but, he knew he didn't have the financial resources to beat JP Morgan in court. He turned the rights over to JP Morgan. That is how GE became synonymous with A/C power production.
Even if this is prior art
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But if it is ever used in litigation by the holder it should be subject to re-certification by the USPTO. The USPTO will have to verify to the court that it meets current eligibility criteria. If it does, the law suit may proceed, if it does not the patent is revoked there and then.
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Not to nitpick, but "alternating current" is usually abbreviated as "AC", whereas "A/C" is used for "air conditioning". Took me a minute to figure out that you actually meant the former.
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Oh look, more "X but on a Y!" patents. So innovative.
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No. Different accounts would mean that the apps would have different context depending on which account you used. For example if I had a document open in a word processor when logged in as Bill, then logging in as Ted would not have that document open. Even if the two accounts happened to have edit permissions to that same document.
That is not what's happening here.
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They essentially put a password on parental controls.
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Parental controls already have passwords. This is not that.
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How is that enforced?
What network layer device does that?
Or by network do you mean windows shares? Services are not a network.
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Which has nothing to do with the network.
You said you limited access to a network.
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Which has nothing to do with the network.
You said you limited access to a network.
His computer is connected to a network and has limited access to that network based on the access it has on the computer.
You do realize that being connected to a network with your computer is the norm now, right? This isn't the 1990's anymore?
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No it does not. It limits only his interactions with those services. It does not for example prevent him from using nmap or send out arbitrary packets. You realize that those are different right? That an unprivileged user on your computing devices can still do damage that way?
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They are not network based credentials. They are credentials for access to resources running either locally or on some server. The fact that you cross a network to get to them does not make them network based.
They are not running on the router or switch or cabling.
I want the water headed MS certified can count to potato folks to stop mixing the two up.
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No, I am attempting to change the way morons speak.
Trolling would be if I said all people who used microsoft software are like that. I did not.
I want them to at least learn the OSI model.
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So if he used the OSI model to describe his network topology how would it change the gist of his argument?
I could argue that there is a network running within your pc (because there is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_(computing) [wikipedia.org] ). It's just local, and the devices communicating to each other are only millimetres apart. It won't change anything if anyone does or doesn't acknowledge that.
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Now you are stretching.
The point is what he meant was if you don't auth against AD you can't get some services.
The reason I hate this use of the work network is that it totally ignores an entire class of security problems. Speaking that way leads to thinking that way. I know of places you can walk in off the street, and plug into the physical network and have lots of fun. From outdated servers to wide open devices to dbs with no auth for local users. Yet, that admin too claims you can't do anything without
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That's fair enough that you don't like that, but it's pretty much a different topic and doesn't really change his argument.
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The guest and you have different contexts. e.g. You and the guest might both have access to the word processor. But when the guest uses that computer, the word processor won't open with the last document YOU had open.
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On a PCs, for several decades now, you can allow access to any resource, e.g. applications, files, local networking, internet access, etc. to any arbitrary level in any arbitrary combination.
If one can allow totally arbitrary combinations of access then Apple's patent is covered by preexisting software.
Changing "password" to "gesture" does not make it novel. Each gesture is the exact equivalent to a password, and it unlocks (or locks) predetermined resources.
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2 decades.
And you're not understanding the fact that different users mean different contexts in traditional OS users schemes.
Changing "password" to "gesture" does not make it novel.
Nobody said it was. But you not understanding the difference between this patent and traditional OS user permissions doesn't mean the difference isn't there.
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Suggesting someone else doesn't understand some non-defined statement of "different contexts" is poor form. You firstly define what you mean by "different contexts" and then I'll tell you if I understand it or not.
"Nobody said it was."
Really, because the patent itself does.
Stop it with the "you don't understand" bullshit - it's a pathetic ploy employed by people insecure with their own arguments.
They have several levels of user space that are defined by different gestures. Each user space is logged into by
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Suggesting someone else doesn't understand some non-defined statement of "different contexts" is poor form. You firstly define what you mean by "different contexts" and then I'll tell you if I understand it or not.
Why didn't you understand what I said the first time?
"The guest and you have different contexts. e.g. You and the guest might both have access to the word processor. But when the guest uses that computer, the word processor won't open with the last document YOU had open."
It's pretty clear. Different user spaces don't simply apply a different set of permissions, they alter the entire working state of the machine. It the "bill" user is looking at this page in Slashdot, logging in to the "ted" username will do
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"Why didn't you understand what I said the first time?"
I'm saying you don't know if I did or didn't. The word "context" has a specific meaning in computing, and you're not using "context" in this context. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context_(computing) [wikipedia.org]. So I repeat, if you think I don't understand, define the scope of your usage of the phrase "different context" and I'll tell you if I've interpreted it correctly or not.
"Different user spaces don't simply apply a different set of permissions,"
No, different
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I'm saying you don't know if I did or didn't. The word "context" has a specific meaning in computing, and you're not using "context" in this context.
I've been a programmer for more than 30 years. The use of the word "context" in computing is far more widespread than that stub wiki page suggests.
"It the "bill" user is looking at this page in Slashdot, logging in to the "ted" username will do many things including starting a different web browser context, with no page or a different page displayed."
That is possible if they want to do implement it like that. Please note, the patent doesn't give specific implementations, instead it gives generalisations. In any case, this is already doable in linux or unix.
WTF? I'm describing the limitation of linux, other unixes and Windows for that matter. The limitation that means it is NOT the same as this Apple patent. And you then claim that Linux can be made to do that?
How much simpler can I make it? Log out a user and the applications close. Log in another user and the applications may reopen. But not in the same state
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You can't meet the challenge = ignore.
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I haven't ignored any of your posts. I've explained and re-explained the difference, and concluded that you either can't or won't understand it. But I certainly haven't ignored.
The conclusion that you are a troll is becoming more likely.
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You describe having open access to some apps, and password protect for all other apps. And then you describe account passwords, a different thing again.
This patent allows different passwords (actually gestures) for different apps. And more than 2 categories.
It's a neat idea, but it feels more like a "refocusing" of ACLs, multi-user login, or the lock screen app access I already have than it does a completely new thing.
Inventions are never "completely new things". It's always building on the shoulders of giants. And "prior art", far from being a disqualifier for a patent, is actually included as a list in nearly all patents. Patents have to include some novel addition
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And then you describe account passwords, a different thing again.
I disagree that they're fundamentally different. They're both "information I need to know to access a capability" (that is, I'd consider my unlock pattern to have the same purpose as any of my account passwords that are used to access functionality built into my phone).
And more than 2 categories.
Right...and I acknowledged that already.
Inventions are never "completely new things".
([etc etc])
I never said that a patent or invention needed to be "completely new" or revolutionary; I was speculating on one reason that other posters' are whining about the "obviousness" of this partic
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I disagree that they're fundamentally different. They're both "information I need to know to access a capability" (that is, I'd consider my unlock pattern to have the same purpose as any of my account passwords that are used to access functionality built into my phone).
So is a lock and key. And yet each different form of lock and key will have been separately patentable at the time of invention. (for those that didn't predate patent laws.) Yet they are less different than an alphanumeric password and a gesture are.
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My point is, it ain't the same. That you can think of similar things does not invalidate a patent.
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Thank God for patents! (Score:3)
Conceptually different (Score:2)
Is this really any conceptually different than different privileges for different accounts? Or account exclusion on different tables in a database?
It would also seem to just be moving the privileged chain to another level from UN/PW to current user/passcode.
P.A.T.E.N.T (Score:4, Insightful)
or maybe
Penetrate Anally To Ensure No Talent
I don't know, just spitballing here. Any takers?
Re:P.A.T.E.N.T (Score:4, Insightful)
Prevent Any Truly Empowering New Technologies
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Previous Art Transcription to Establish Newfangled Theory
Prior Art (Score:3)
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While I agree about the.. questionable nature of the patent, it was filed in 2010 -- i.e. before that functionality became part of Android. (Though if you could access the camera from the lockscreen with third-party apps, feel free to disregard my silly comment.)
I'm pretty sure that even my Treo let me answer the phone while the screen was locked and a few other features, too. And that was long before Android or iOS.
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Exactly, I can log in to a computer via a guest account and be given access to a subset of the installed applications, I can then log in as a user and be given access to another set.
That's been standard functionality for about half a century
Gotta be more to it than that (Score:2)
Reading the patent, it appears Apple managed to patent allowing access to some programs without a passcode from the lock screen of a device while protecting others, so e.g. you can quickly swipe to make a phone call or control your music, but have to enter a code to read your email or access your word processor documents.
I doubt that highly, as this is excatly how Windows has behaved since Vista in 2006.
I wonder.... (Score:2)
Either the patent office has the most computer-illiterate patent reviewers or there is an intentional just approve anything mentality there, at least where Apple is concerned. I wonder if Samsung had applied for this patent if it would have been approved?
patent ? (Score:2)
Crappy patent overview (Score:5, Insightful)
1990s: "... on a computer!"
2000s: "... on the Internet!"
2010s: "... on a mobile device!"
Prior Art from about thirty four years ago (Score:2)
@enaBLE (capability) wHEEL
Password: ******
There are other (and even older) examples; that is just the one that occurred to me first...
Some versions of Unix support capabilities, of course. Here we are using the word "capability" in a more abstract sense like the non-technical word "permission"; the system need not be capability-based. So it seems to me that all that Apple has patented is the use of the lock screen and PIN as the UI to enable the capability: the password determines which capabilities
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But its iNnovation to replace the password with a gesture!
Yet another useless patent... (Score:2)
I know my android already has some of this for alarms and music, and I would indeed like to see it expanded - I want my email to be protected, but I want to be able to hit pause on my workout program easier.
Uh oh (Score:2)
So I need to throw away all my devices that support parental controls and multiple user accounts?
Hardly new (Score:2)
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Apple Receives Patent For Accessing Sets of Apps (Score:2)
On netbooks, I was doing this for years. (since 2009 in fact). So the only change is how the non-password software program is initiated.
With the netbook, it was simple. No initial password. Use the unprotected apps as you wish, When you need access to the protected ones, its just one access/password to enter. Thereafter, all code is free, subject to Linux rules.
La de da to Apple. See the lawsuits fly. Time to buy made in New Zealand products before the trade barriers go up.
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News flash, Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, HTC, Google, and others apply for and receive patents for literally THOUSANDS of concepts every year. It really isn't news-worthy. Sorry. Let me know when they (and I don't just mean Apple - I mean anyone) actually IMPLEMENTS the patent or decides to otherwise use the patent. Otherwise, it amounts to "company came up with an idea that the lawyers were able to write up into a patent so they did as lawyers do and patented it".
This one sounds quite useful, so I would think that Apple is going to implement it. It might even be novel, because I haven't seen anyone doing it before. On the other hand, I surely disagree with the USPTO on the meaning of "obvious".
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the newsworthiness isnt the patent itself. its the obvious nature and blatant abuse of the patent system that is the newsworthy aspect.
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And unless Touchdown pay Apple royalties now, no more games for your son.