William Gallagher
If Apple has its way, the very newest accessory for an iPad could be broadcast television as received through an Apple Pencil for some reason.
If you really wanted to, you could argue that Apple has a history of working with broadcast television, since it even had a Macintosh TV in 1993. Not the most successful Mac design ever made, it was painted black, came with a built-in TV tuner, and is said to have sold only around 10,000.
It also didn't include everything you needed to get the about-320x200 broadcast television of the day. You still had to plug a TV aerial or a cable connection into the back of the card before it could show you anything.
Flash forward three decades and it's as if Apple has figured out the aerial solution. A newly revealed patent application called "Accessory For Electronic Device Including Broadcast Signal Tuner," says the firm could update an Apple Pencil to make it into an aerial.
Being a patent application, it's very short about actual specifics of how it would work technically. It also doesn't dwell on why in the world you would want it to do this.
Apple's reasoning for an Apple Pencil TV antenna
There is one nod to a reason why an external Apple Pencil TV aerial could be useful.
"Electronic devices have also become ubiquitous for consumption of audio, video, and other media in a convenient manner," says the patent application. "These functions may also be unavailable when cellular or other Internet connected networks are unavailable."
We can't be expected to get through the day without "Good Morning America," and Apple frets about the potential risk of new technology to that viewing.
"Moreover, due to the ubiquity of Internet-based, on-demand content delivery sources (e.g., streaming video), as well as the general trend towards smaller and lighter electronic devices," continues the patent application, "such devices may not be configured to receive and/or process broadcast content, such as broadcast TV signals."
If you can't wedge a TV receiver into ever smaller and lighter devices, Apple proposes that you instead do it to one of the smallest and lightest accessory possible. Apple Pencil is really the shape and size it is for usability, and familiarity for artists used to actual pencils, but it's also full of electronics.
Those will have to squeezed though, because Apple wants a future Apple Pencil to incorporate an aerial — or two.
The new patent application describes "accessories that are configured to... receive and process broadcast signals and wirelessly communicate the content from the broadcast signals to the remote electronic device," says the patent application. So one aerial receives the signal — which could be "an Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) broadcast protocol" — and then a second transmit to the iPad or other device.
The modern equivalent of holding up the rabbit-ear aerial"In this way, TV signal capture and processing operations may be provided by a device (e.g., an accessory device such as a stylus) that is separate from the electronic device on which the content is displayed (e.g., the tablet computer)," says Apple. "Moreover, by providing the TV signal capture and processing functions in an accessory that also performs an accessory function for the electronic device, greater functionality may be provided to an electronic device without requiring additional accessories or components."
ATSC is a digital TV standard, so it's not like Apple is trying to take us back to the days of tuning a dial in to your local network affiliate. All full-power TV stations in the US are mandated by the FCC to broadcast digitally, and it also requires that they continue with over-the-air transmissions for the foreseeable future.
If that weren't enough for you, though, Apple's proposed aerial would also be able to receive "a fifth-generation (5G) broadcast protocol," so you'll never be left out as long as your battery lasts.
Nonetheless, if you want to be able to watch "Days of Our Lives" — after first checking online to see if it's even still running in this distant future — Apple wants you to be able to. With your Apple Pencil.
As unlikely as it seems that you could get, and want to get, broadcast news when there isn't Wi-Fi or cellular coverage, there is actually a demand. It's just not a very big demand, and it's been more about radio than TV.
Back in 2017, the FCC urged Apple to activate the FM radios in iPhones so that people could hear updates even with Wi-Fi was out. Apple refused, on the pretty indisputable grounds that there aren't any FM radios in iPhones.
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The link to the patent application doesn't work, but I will speculate again here that it is often the case that Apple patent applications are written so as to obfuscate what a resulting end product might actually be.
The novel concept here appears not so much to be about an apple pencil, but about a wireless antenna that receives broadcast (and other) signals, and then retransmits that signal to a user device. The pencil and iPad might be relevant, but they also might not.
It's been true for the better part of a century that optimal broadcast television reception requires often awkward positioning of a directional antenna. [Insert rabbit ears and aluminum foil memes here.] This is perhaps even more true for digital television signals, which can go from crystal clear to useless with only minor changes to an antenna's positioning. This is perhaps a reason why portable flat screen TVs are not much of a thing, and why phones and tablets don't already have broadcast TV reception capabilities.
If this patent means you could place a small wireless antenna (whether it's a repurposed Apple pencil or not) in some awkward place that's good for TV (or other signal) reception, and then (Look ma! No wires!) position the receiving user device somewhere that's not awkward for optimal viewing, that could be a game changing innovation. Any apple device with a screen could then become a free-broadcast-signal TV.
Apart from portable devices like phones and tablets, the next version of the Apple TV box could have integrated broadcast television included, with placement of a wireless TV antenna in the garage or an upstairs bedroom or whatever. Combine that with whatever broadband-based streaming subscriptions you want, and suddenly Apple is at the heart of the plan to cut the cable-tv cord.
Also, the antenna could be designed for many other wireless antenna needs. Better WiFi, 5G, BT. Anything, really.
Will we see built-in ATSC tuners for the iPads? That will be great.
Mike, if you're reading this far, I've been reading into the prehistory of the internet. There is an actress that I'm starting to love and admire. Her name is Hedy Lamarr. Such an exquisitely intelligent mind she has. She might be a worthy article in AppleInsider. She really shaped the current communications industry around the world.