For nearly a decade now i’ve been telling my friends and family while we’re watching TV, “I don’t care who does it, I just want a small box I can connect to the TV that will replace these annoying loud commercials.” And who, none other than Apple has answered my prayers; at least they have begun to anyway.

Apple on Tuesday has been granted Patent No. 8,249,497 for “Seamless switching between radio and local media.” The system will switch between broadcast commercials and your personal media, allowing you to interject their content with content you have stored on a cloud or storage device of some type.

For example, you are listening to a radio station or watching TV, the system can skip sections that you are not interested in and fill that time with family photos, music, a video, in other words, something a little more relevant and personal.

A user, however, may not be interested in every media item provided as part of a broadcast stream. For example, a user may not like a particular song broadcast by a radio station, or may not like a particular segment of a talk radio station (e.g., the user does not like the topic or guest of the segment). As another example, a user may not be interested in content originally generated by sources other than the media source (e.g., advertisement content). Because the user has no control over the media broadcast, the user can typically only tune to a different media broadcast, or listen to or consume the broadcast content that is not of interest.

This technology would be an obvious enhancement to the Apple TV experience, or even an actual iTV we have been hearing so much about. It would give Apple a revolutionary edge, combining traditional broadcasting technology with new streaming on-demand content. The future of Television is in Apple’s hands.

[ via Apple Insider ]

The post Apple Patent will Destroy Annoying TV Commercials with your own content appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

iOS Hackers Steve Troughton-Smith and @TheMudKip have been working hard to bring some iOS magic to Apple TV, specifically in bringing iOS Apps to your large screen without the sanctioned support of Apple.  So far their progress is very promising, they have managed not only to install iOS Apps on the Apple TV, but also get apps to appear full screen. In the video below, the hack by @TheMudKip showed iOS Apps like Facebook, YouTube & Maps running in 720p fullscreen.

All this is made possible by MobileX, it’s just like a SpringBoard on the iPhone but this one is coded just for Apple TV. It will be from here where you would be able to launch iOS Apps.

@TheMudKip said that he “rewrote SpringBoard from scratch using only QuartzCore.”

Next comes the question of controlling your iOS Apps on the Apple TV. As we all know, iOS is a touch based OS and not a hardware controlled one. In its early stages the hackers used VNC to control the apps, but Steve confirmed that he had cooked up a hack to control the apps via Apple TV’s IR remote control.

“The built-in menu controlled by the remote allows you to quit apps, launch Safari, connect to Wi-Fi, or show multiple apps side by side,” he said. “Audio and video work well too so many games and media apps just work, like YouTube.”

While rumors are around about a secret Apple TV perhaps emerging officially from Apple, we are not sure if and when Apple may reveal their own television, regardless, with this hack it looks like we might be able to taste a bit of iTV a little sooner once MobileX is ready for primetime.

Will this make you get an Apple TV?

(MobileX Running on Apple TV)

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According to the claim, Apple is making the move primarily because it will allow them to control manufacturing and secure supply at a lower cost. Allegedly, Apple has purchased between $500 million and a billion in equipment for manufacturing and has taken exclusive hold over one Sharp facility for iPhone and iPad displays.

According to the source, Apple’s relationship with Samsung is deteriorating all around and they have even started shifting some of their purchases of flash memory away from Samsung in favor of Toshiba.

Rumor suggests another part of Apple’s move to Sharp is that they want to use the company to begin production of the screens for the “Apple Television”. Whether or not such a product is really in the works or is simply a rumor is still yet to be determined.

It is probably best to take the information from Peter Misek with a grain of salt until an official confirmation comes from either Samsung, Sharp, or Apple. It certainly makes sense that with Sharp it would be easier for Apple to take direct control over the direction of its screen production. As for the rumors about the Apple Television? It certainly is possible, but for now talking about such a device is merely speculation.

The post Apple Switching To Sharp For Displays appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Recently, information came to light about the possibility of an Apple-branded Television set. This news came about from comments Jobs left to Walter Isaacson, the writer of the recently pubihsed biography about the former Apple CEO. In the bio, Jobs spoke of future plans for such a TV set that would possibly integrate Siri, iCloud, and more to provide a high-end multimedia experience from a wonderfully capable HDTV. Many speculations have led to it having all the technologies of an integrated Apple TV entertainment device, and more.

The news of the device has sparked the imaginations of many, including Guilherme M. Schasiepen who has created a fantastic concept design for what he believes an Apple Television should look like. The concept is named the “iTV” and features a super-thin, minimalistic styling that is decisively Apple-esque. According to the concept the device would offer abilities such as Siri Voice Control, multi-touch, FaceTime HD, AirPlay, and no-glasses 3D technology.

According to Scahsiepen, the concept would come in 32, 42, or 50 inch models with at least 1TB of internal storage. As a design concept, I honestly think it is very beautiful and could certainly look a lot like what Apple might truly design. As far as the ‘capabilities’, however, this concept is probably shooting a little too high with 1-2TB of memory and no-glasses 3D; although Apple is very good at creating cutting edge products that redefine expectations, so we really can’t be sure.

What we do know is that if such a product surfaces, Siri is likely to be part of the package. What you have to wonder though is wouldn’t it be more cost effective to just make a more powerful Apple TV Entertainment device that offered Siri, internal storage, and even possibly PVR functions? If such an Apple TV device existed I would certainly consider purchasing it, but a $2000+ priced Apple Television set? For now we will just have to wait and see.

[Source]

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