Apple Secures Patent for iPod touch ‘Accessory Transceiver’

Apple has filed a patent application for an 'accessory transceiver', which would effectively turn the media player into a cell phone.

PatentlyApple, a web site focusing exclusively on Apple’s inventions, has recently found a truckload of Apple patent applications (27, to be precise) published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

According to the site, ten of the filings in question refer to accessory functionality such as identification processes, communication techniques, application protocols and others.

One, however, stood out, because of the mentioning of “an accessory transceiver that could provide a mobile device like the iPod touch with access to a mobile telephone network.”

The site appropriately notes that “the prospect of being able to provide them with telephonic capabilities via an accessory transceiver is rather an interesting development.”

Apple’s patent includes two methods of connecting this accessory transceiver to the iPod touch. One involves a physical connection, the other, a wireless one.

As with every patent application, this invention features several possible scenario, or “embodiments,” as the terminology goes.

One embodiment has the mobile device including an internal wireless transceiver that could provide access to a different mobile telephone network.

Using the transceiver could allow the device to access two separate mobile telephone networks, the patent filings reveal.

The transceiver could be configured to communicate with a mobile phone network, a WiFi network, a WiMax network, or a satellite network, the documentation adds.

In other embodiments, the accessory transceiver could also be used to send text messages, emails, and web packets.

Apple credits Paul Holden, Robert Borchers, Jesse Dorogusker, Emily Schubert and Stephen Chick as the inventors.

The patent application (20100234051) was originally filed in Q1 2010, according to PatentlyApple.

Softpedia readers may recall that two parties sharing the same interests (turning a profit) have partnered up to sell the “Apple Peel 520”, a case-shaped accessory for the iPod touch that contains the appropriate hardware to turn the player into a communications device.

Set to go on sale in the US for around $60, the device requires a jailbroken iPod touch to add cell phone capabilities, including text messaging.