With many companies fiercely guarding their respective patents and filing for a new as one the moment they make a new discovery, it seems that the future of tech companies and their fortunes will heavily rely on their patents. Apple has a knack of filing patents often, many of them not even ever implemented. Now, it has been discovered that back in 2010, Apple filed for a patent for an electronic device that can act more or less like a digital DJ.
According to the description of the patent as has been submitted by Apple, this patent will be covering an electronic device and it will enable the user to locate and interpret beats from a preceding AAC, MP3 or WMA file. It will then crossfade these beats into those of the following track. In a way, it would be performing the function of a digital DJ.
Although Apple did file a patent for this back in 2010, we haven’t really seen any such feature in any of Apple’s later devices. So it remains to be seen whether or not Apple has any plans of implementing the technology described in this patent because Apple has often filed patents which were never realized and remain just that, patents.
Also, now that the news are public, we may seem the interest of those who have a stake in the music industry pricked. They may start working on similar technologies and, who knows, get them out before Apple does.
Image courtesy furibond
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Beat matching is a 10+ year old hat… there’s been software and hardware devices that have this for a long time.
A typical Apple patent fishing trip, “lets file a lot of stuff and see if something sticks”
The patent clerk who approved this was probably specialized in mechanical farm eqipment patents, and has never seen a music studio from the inside in his entire life.