Apple’s patent policy—filing for basically any idea that any employee is willing to sketch, ever—gives us an endless supply of speculation grist, some interesting, some not. Take this patent, which calls for flash microstorage in headsets and earbuds.
The patent describes the sharing of device settings, preferences and even media between iPods and iPhones by means of a sort of smart headset, which stores personalizations in a small cache of flash memory. As described, it sounds a bit strange, and its purpose isn’t entirely clear: most of the functions are things that fall under the purview of syncing, which is something that most iPod/iPhone users do regularly anyway, and which they have to do when buying a new device anyway, mooting the “it makes transitioning easier” angle.
But for certain settings, it makes some sense: volume and EQ settings, for example, could be kept the same between devices, ensuring a uniform listening experience. It’d be a teeny, tiny feature that most people wouldn’t notice, but it’s far from implausible. [Unwired View]
