Cupertino (CA) – Apple believes it can ease the pain of abruptly dropped calls due to weak network signal – simply by warning users that their connection may be cut.

The filing entitled "Wireless communication out of range indication" discusses an approach to provide an alert when Wi-Fi or mobile network signal is about to be lost, giving users a chance to take “corrective measures”. The technology will leverage positioning capabilities of wireless technologies such as Wi-Fi and GPS. Apple claims that that hardware such as GPS or an accelerometer can provide a precise estimate of the time before wireless or cellular connectivity is lost.

"The invention is also well suited to be incorporated with mobile devices that are equipped with guidance systems (GPS, accelerometers, etc.) thereby providing an accurate value of the location, velocity, acceleration, elevation, etc. of the wireless mobile device that can be used to give a more precise value of the time remaining until the out of boundary condition is reached," the filing states.

It is one of ideas you would wonder why no one else has thought of this before (assumed that it really works).

What makes this patent even more interesting is the fact that this capability is not only limited to a specific user’s device, but also to other participants in a call. An iPhone/iPod touch could transmit a warning to other participants of a conference call who would then be informed that a call may soon be dropped. The warning itself could be a vibration alert, a ringtone or a symbol on the screen.

"Warnings are only issued for those situations where the loss of signal would affect the user in the here and now and thereby prevent unnecessary (and potentially annoying) warnings being issued," the filing says.

My really old (and no longer in service) mobile had...

May 30, 2008 02:34     

My really old (and no longer in service) mobile had a beeping tone when connectivity dropped below 2 bars during a call. It was not as complicated and probably useful as apple's idea, but enough to say it's not an new idea at all. If the patent covers every service that will warn users of failing connection, not just the way to implement it, it will be bad for competition and further improvements of this "new" idea. Apple is just implementing a collaboration between device and network in this warning system, but as far as I know, except for that 10$ mobile phone that does not have a screen, warning tones or not, all mobile phones show their connection status on the display. And Apple is a powerful enough company to make profit out of the successful implementation of their warning system without making others hold back.

Virtualban report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +2

a marvelous idea - shouldn't be patented

May 30, 2008 06:52     

This idea is great but it shouldn't be patented. It's one of those ideas that nobody should really pay for. The implementation of it will drive sales enough. Knowledge should be free. So should ideas like this. Things that might be patentable are particular lines of code or developed cryptography technologies and compression algorithms. It's sad when you can put a price on such simple ideas
chewbie report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

I don't know...

May 30, 2008 07:06     

I don't know about anyone else but half the time when I have a dropped call, I'm not even moving.....
Sumgi report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +2

I've got an idea!!!! -

May 30, 2008 07:08     

I've got a great idea. You know "the wheel"? Those things you find on cars, bikes, etc. Don't worry, I'm not reinventing the wheel, but I am bringing a fantastic feature (patent pending). I propose, if you include a feature called "a brake", and build it into the "wheel", now you have a excellent new wheel which can ROLL and STOP! Amazing, simply amazing. Just wait until I get a patent on this sucker. Cha CHING!

User1 report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +3

Preemptive interrupt?

May 30, 2008 08:14     

Anyone else thing that this could get really annoying if the preemptive drop call warning is anything louder than something like an almost imperceptible beep?
Steve report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

How can you patent that?

Jun 01, 2008 01:20     

The patent office needs to be fixed. When you can patent dumb crap like this you know theirs an issue. I'm going to patent the yellow light for stop lights, so people know when to stop. ANY cell phone maker could alert you to this issue. There is no special technology involved in letting someone know their call is about to be dropped!!!!
Marko report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +3