"Marimba" shatters the early morning silence. Groggy, you fumble for your iPhone and "slide to unlock", ending the alarm. A cloudy, gloomy day greets you as you skip the weather and start on your email. In the background, your iPhone begins to stream the morning news. Not all of it and not all from one source, just your favorites. Just what you'd previously setup in iTunes Podcast Creator.

Sports and local highlights -- minus the crime news that's too harsh for your morning mellow -- flow one from the next, scraped while you slept from CNN, ABC, BBC, CBC, Comedy, and all the independent, niche podcasts you'd favorite'd. The fuzzy-logic of Apple's servers matched your criteria as closely as possible while still filling the 60 min. time slot you'd set up. And once collected, assembled it and pushed it out to your iMac, where iTunes made it available immediately for streaming over WiFi right to your iPhone.

Today, however, you're running late and don't even have time to sync before heading out the door. But since your iPhone can access your iMac's streaming, custom-podcasts over the blazingly fast 4G LTE network, you don't even notice the transition from local to wide area network as your door closes and you hit the street. You just keep on listening as Jon Stewart makes fun of whos-that-president for the umpteenth time. And as you jump on the train, with a couple quick taps, your iMac is updated, your iTunes Podcast Creator is adjusted, Stewart is out of tomorrow's mix, and iPhone lover Stephen Colbert is back in.

The good-looking passenger beside you comments on the awesome sounding custom podcast you're rocking. Smiling, you tap another button and peer-to-peer it right on over, just as the train pulls out and the day starts to look ever so much brighter...

Sound more like a multi-media dream than current reality? Well, some of Apple's newest patents look like they might be trying to make this particular dream come true. Read on for what just might be the future of iTunes and truly mobile media...

Beyond TV

Previously we've covered Apple's TV related patents, including peripherals for watching TV directly on the iPhone, and a much more ambitious concept to free us from the Big Media networks with remote, iPhone-controlled personal video recording (PVR). Arguably the Apple Remote launched along with the App Store was the first salvo in the battle for next generation TV domination, where the iPhone/Apple TV/iTunes triple play faces competition from other integrated consumer electronics companies like Sony with their PS3/PSP combo and Microsoft with their Windows Media Center/Xbox 360/Zune/Windows Mobile smorgasbord.

But no matter how significant it may seem today, the TV battleground is not the Media war, not when content is moving increasingly online and on demand.

Podcast Creator

The engine behind what could be one of Apple's Next Big Things can be found in a recent patent filing for dynamically generated media. Today, iTunes provides a massive amount of free audio and video podcasts, but these podcasts are supplied in "blocks" by the content creator, and while some are specifically focused, like the iPhone blog's Phone Different podcast, others are far more general, like TWiT's MacBreak Weekly, or even This Week in Tech.

So, let's say you're only interested in iPhone news, and really only in App Store coverage. Right now, that's a problem:

"Unfortunately, however, a subscriber may desire a podcast that is somewhat different from the available podcasts," wrote patent inventor Ellis Verosub. "In many cases, a subscriber is not interested in the entire pre-established podcast but would prefer to modify the podcast in some manner. However, there is currently no way for a subscriber to alter the content within a podcast."

What Apple proposes to solve this problem is a robust back-end solution where not only could you subscribe to podcasts are usual, but tell the server precisely which subjects you are interested in, and have only those segments which include that subject individually packaged and delivered as a personalized podcast straight to your iTunes.

In typical Apple fashion, a simple set of controls would provide for popular or frequently used categories, as well as custom settings for more granular control. Bringing in the power of the iPhone and Apple's new Mobile WiFi Platform in general to this model makes it particularly exciting:

"In addition," Verosub added, "for management of podcasts, a client device or a portable media device can also be configured so that the podcasts are automatically maintained or discarded based on any of a number of different criteria. For example, the number of podcasts (or episodes thereof) being maintained could be limited and the oldest stored podcast can be deleted when more than the predetermined number of podcasts (or episodes thereof) is being stored."

Managing custom, on-demand podcasts via your iPhone is good. So is the aforementioned Remote App that lets you control iTunes and Apple TV via WiFi. But there's one piece still missing from this next generation media puzzle.

iTunes Streaming

You have your personalized podcast in iTunes, but what if you don't have time to sync it over to your iPhone? What if you run out of storage space and just can't fit that last Olympic news roundup? What if you finish everything you'd previously synced and are desperate for just a half hour more? These situations are why many users (us included!) have been begging for the ability to stream content directly from iTunes to our iPhones. Luckily, it looks like Apple is working on this as well, according to another patent application, this time by David Heller and Thomas Mavrakakis:

"For instance, a personal computer can be turned on and connected to the Internet to enable a portable device to access the media items stored on the personal computer," Apple said, adding that the files could then delete themselves from the portable device once the user is done listening to or viewing them.

Interestingly, the patent also covers the ability to share not just with your own computer, but with other iPhone users in an almost Microsoft Zune-like manner:

"This type of communication can be referred to as peer-to-peer interaction. In this regard, one mobile device can communicate directly with another mobile device" or " to a plurality of other mobile devices," Apple said. "In the peer-to-peer environment, one mobile device can communicate with one or more other electronic devices (whether mobile or stationary) in the immediate vicinity. Data sharing can be performed when such communication is available."

What's In It For Them?

Free is great. In fact, our generation has become so entitled, we've come not only to expect everything for free, but to demand it. How can this be balanced with making sure creators are paid enough to keep them creating, and distributers have enough revenue to keep the pipes moving?

Alex Lindsay of This Week in Media often makes the point that the current advertising model is broken. Worse, audiences are starting to resent advertisers who interrupt programming with often disconnected and sometimes completely unrelated and irrelevant messaging. It bugs us.

Yet advertising as content, where the ad is either entertaining enough that we want to watch it (something Apple often does well), or informative enough we don't even think of it as a commercial. Lindsay gives the example of Tide, rather than just forcing us to watch another 30 second spot most of us could care less about, could make their own video podcast on how to get stains out of clothing. No overt advertising or product pushing; the hosts are merely using and demonstrating Tide and its effectiveness.

This could just as easily be a series of how-to's for iPhone users, just like Apple's more generic Quick Tips already serves OS X. And if iTunes is scraping Phone Different, MacBreak Weekly, This Week in Tech, GeekBrief.tv, Webbalert, Diggnation, and other podcasts for iPhone news, it could very easily -- and seamlessly -- integrate "advertising" content right in, complete with links to buy or subscribe to whatever is being demonstrated.

Conclusion

Podcasts revolutionized the mobile market, and the staggering amount of free, high-quality podcasts available via iTunes helped make the iPod. While Apple files many, many patents every year, and there's never any way of knowing which ones -- if any -- will filter down to actual products or services, this latest round of iTunes-related filings show an interesting and exciting direction for the future of the media, right here on our iPhones.

Ever-watchful Apple Insider brings word on yet another Apple patent drop. This one, published in March, sets the stage for the long anticipated -- nay, demanded -- Mobile iChat application.

Though the iPhone already includes a somewhat similar, though carrier-bound, SMS app, the need to move away from device-modal technologies (i.e. phone to phone) to more open protocols (i.e., phone to computer to console, etc.) like Instant Messenger is compelling. In answer, Apple has proposed an interface that builds on the SMS app in significant ways:

[T]he ability to start new messages by searching through the contact list or typing the first few letters of someone's name. Users can also see a past chat history and remove individual conversations from the list. [...] [A] dedicated text field for entering new messages, another would have typed text appear directly in a new message bubble and would replace the text entry box with a list of suggested words.

While the patent could still, technically, be used for SMS or MMS, Apple Insider maintains the former is not mention, while IM is captioned on the image filings.

Personally, I'd love me some first party (multi-tasking?) IM. But how does this relate to the already demoed AOL app? The two work together on the desktop, does that portent a mobile relationship as well? Or is Apple planning on running over them here?

Of course, this could also join the enormous heap of Apple patents that have yet to find any real world application.

What do you think?

Your plane's landing in the middle of nowhere. Scratch that. WAY past the middle of nowhere -- that little state on the other coast you've never been to, where the people have funny accents and McDonald's has menu items you've never seen before.

The pilot flips off the seatbelt light, you whip out your iPhone to make a quick call, and before the bars come up you're greeted with a screen that lists off all the local service providers complete with up-to-the-minute rate information. You flick-scroll to the cheapest one, tap to select, the bars pop up, the network springs to life, and you start your call.

What? Your iPhone doesn't do that? You don't get to pick your service provider? You don't get to choose just-in-time data rates? You're stuck with AT&T 24/7?!

Yeah. That's because you're in the real world, not the world of what might-have-been. Not the world Apple could have created had they gone ahead with a little patent just recently brought to public attention...

Tale of Two Telcos

If you make a cell phone you have to have a telco behind it to provide voice, data, SMS, and other network services. In the United States, there are currently two types of telco providers.

1. Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), which include the likes of AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile. These monoliths own their own bands of frequency and have pushed out their own hardware infrastructures to support them. They have the towers, the cables, and the oligopoly.
2. Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs), which include (or have included) Virgin, Helio, AMP'd, and other discount, niche, localize, or otherwise boutique operations.

Dealing with the Devil

Apple, of course, ultimately chose option one: a locked-in, carrier-exclusive agreement with AT&T (then Cingular). For an estimated 5 years from initial launch, anyone who wants an iPhone in the United States has to sign a 2-year service contract with AT&T or be unable to activate their device, much less make calls or use EDGE data.

This agreement gave Apple carrier-cooperation in the form of Visual Voicemail and low-cost unlimited data plans. It also gave them revenue sharing with estimates as high as $15 per user per month ($360 over the course of the 2 year contract, on top of hardware and potential retail sales profits).

What Might Have Been

Even though Apple went with option one, a recent patent application shows they had a plan for option two ready as well -- and in typical Apple fashion, it's as slick as it is revolutionary.

Right now, when you pick up your iPhone, slide to unlock, and tap the Stocks widget, you get relatively up-to-date (within 20 min.) quotes. Right now, when you pick up your iPhone, slide to unlock, and tap the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store, you get a list of songs you can flick-scroll through and tap to purchase through your iTunes account. Come June, you'll be able to do similar with the App Store.

In a different world, similar functionality would have existed via an "iCarrier" Store. Unlike traditional MVNOs, however, the patent filing indicates Apple may not have bought minutes in bulk from an MNO and simply resold them to iPhone users. Rather, they proposed a model combining the previously mentioned Stocks widget's near realtime price quoting with the iTunes Wi-Fi Store's (or App Store's) near instant transactional processing and purchasing system.

With this system a (presumably WebObjects-based) server would store up-to-date rate information for all regional, affiliated networks and then select whichever provided the best option at the moment, or -- in an even more utopian service -- allow the end-user to select for themselves as simply and easily as buying a Tune or downloading an App.

Apple Insider quotes Apple's iPod chief, Anthony Fadell:

"Bids can be received from multiple network operators for rates at which communication services using each network operator can be obtained. Preferences among the network operators can be determined using the received bids, and the preferences are used to select the network operator."

"Preferences may be further based on a location of the mobile device, the quality of service offered by the network operator, and/or type of communication. Bids from multiple network operators for rate information relating to rates at which communication services using each network operator can be obtained and the rate information can be sent to the mobile device for use in selecting the network operator."

And What Still Could Be

A system as described in the Apple patent could benefit consumers in many ways. Ars Technica sums them up as follows:

To borrow from AT&T's adage, it would mean more bars in more places at lower prices. Apple would also clearly benefit by the greatly expanded coverage of the iPhone, and the end to sale-stunting exclusivity agreements. Unfortunately, telecommunications companies like AT&T would be forced to actually compete for customers on price every minute of every day. One need look no further than what happened to the record companies when they relinquished control of pricing to the iTunes Store to see how that looks from the perspective of a faceless multinational corporation. Of course, the technical and business issues associated with becoming an MVNO would also be a hurdle for Apple, but getting the telcos to go along with this idea is a stone wall a hundred feet high.

Sound like a dream come true? Probably not for the oligopolistic telcos desperate not to become "dumb pipes" and gorged on over-priced service and subscription revenue ($0.20 to send 140 character text message?! Do the math for a megabyte at that rate and then shout "clear" and reach for the paddles!) For them it probably sounds like a nightmare.

Differences in technology in some countries, like the United States where MSOs are split between GSM and CDMA (which would require a broader spectrum radio), and lack of competition in others, such as Canada where there is but a single GSM provider, could limit these benefits in the short term. And as we said, Apple is currently locked-in to telco deals in the US, UK, France, Germany, and other countries. But Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook himself recently said:

"We're not married to any business model. What we're married to is shipping the best phones in the world."

Indeed.

Personally, I would love to see this system manifest for disruptive reasons alone. How does the idea grab you?

Dual-sided, transparent, flip-capable iPhone Nano?

El Jobso and Co. might just be exploring the possibility according to a recent patent filing unearthed, as usual, by the folks at Apple Insider.

Some of the juicy details include:

"capacitive array element [that] may be a dual-sided panel that is capable of sensing touch from either side and sending signals indicative of the touches to a host device (e.g., a desktop computer, a laptop computer, a digital music player or a mobile telephone unit)."

Of course, many Apple patent filing simply disappear into the dim, dank vaults of 1 Infinite Loop while others show up in ways or products we never could have guessed -- but that certainly doesn't mean we shouldn't try!

I'll admit, the idea doesn't hold much appeal to me, or to those still waiting for their big-apps iTablet Safari Pad, but I've learned never to underestimate Johnny Ive and Cupertino's finest. If anyone could make this little miracle as functional as it is "lick-able", it's them.

What do you think? Does this give us any hard insight into a next-gen iPhone? How does the idea of a translucent touch screen grab you? Is a flip phone a great idea or just another point of failure in the waiting?