iPhone 4.0 is pretty much certain to arrive in June and a pair of new patents point to some exciting potential features. Will you soon be using iPhone 4.0 to send voice SMS messages walkie-talkie style and hooking up with iPhone touting friends in iGroups? Apple is definitely thinking about it.
An Apple patent from November opens up the potential for a voice SMS system in iPhone 4.0. Rather than leaving a message for your friend to pick up from their iPhone 4.0 Visual Voicemail, you’d be able to sling across a snippet of audio that could be converted into an ordinary text SMS or sent as a voice clip.
If Apple implemented the voice SMS patent in iPhone 4.0, it would open up the potential for a walkie-talkie mode, allowing you to fire voice messages back and forth without having to start a traditional voice call. Whether phone networks would be happy to support the service and how it would affect your bill remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, Foursquare and other location-aware social networks might be worried by a second patent detailing plans for iGroup instant social networks of iPhones.
The iGroup patent details the creation of a real-time wireless social network of iPhone 4.0 handsets using a router as the access point. iPhone 4.0 handsets would use a token shared via Bluetooth to link together.
iGroup networks could mean iPhone 4.0 users at a conference or concert could exchange files and messages during an event or receive news or information from the event organiser direct to their phones.
Apple puts its name to plenty of patents that never see the light of day. However, the growing stream of published patents with potential uses for iPhone 4.0 is likely to continue until the summer.
Take a gander at our iPhone 3GS: nine months on review and let us know what features you’re gagging for Apple to add into iPhone 4.0.
Out TBC | £TBC | Apple (via Apple Insider | Patently Apple)
