According to a new patent published today, it appears that Apple is working on a new iPhone Merchant-Client Transaction System that will make ordering your early morning Cappuccino or after game pizza a little easier from your local restaurant using your iPhone and/or other future portables. In fact, the patent also includes a future radio which is in line with yet another Apple patent published earlier today. Apple’s patent details their merchant-client wireless system which will work with cellular, WiFi, WiMAX or Bluetooth networks.

Certain aspects of Apple’s patent could be interestingly implemented in the future. Being able to access restaurant menus on the go is one of them and I’m sure that as the program progresses it’ll include more unique participants such as a local jazz or blues club narrowcasting their current entertainers or some music stores letting you know of some hot new CDs that have just arrived and so forth.

One of the keys regarding the merchant program that were described in today’s patent, allows for merchants to be able to push their new ads to devices that are tuned into this new web service. So, in a way, it’s really going to take some tech savvy merchants to get involved here in order for any of this to matter. Admittedly the idea is great on paper, but it’s really going to take a lot of ground work and effort on Apple’s part to get local merchants on board this initiative in order to really make any of this meaningful beyond ordering our favorite junk foods. Yet if any company has a fighting chance of starting a cultural revolution of this nature, it’s Apple. The iPod and their new iPhone may just have the sway with merchants to get them on board, but only time will tell.

Unique Security System Feature

One of the unique safeguards that Apple has built into this new system is the ability for merchants to report a stolen iPod/iPhone if the owner has properly reported that information to Apple in a timely manner.

Apple states that in some cases “whenever a wireless media player comes within range of the wireless data network, the wireless media player can be (unbeknownst to the user) directed to send a wireless media player identifier that uniquely identifies the particular wireless media player to the wireless data network. The wireless media player identifier can be used to track lost or stolen media players when the rightful owner has placed the wireless media player identifier in a central database of lost or stolen media players. In this way, if a lost or stolen media player is tracked, any number of subsequent actions can be taken such as notifying the authorities, disabling the wireless media player, displaying a notice to return the wireless media player, etc. thereby providing a strong disincentive for stealing the player.”

Apple’s Merchant Transaction System

Apple’s patent FIG. 2B is a block diagram of the wireless system shown in FIG. 2A suitably configured for receiving and processing a remote order from a wireless client device.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye: Calling All Customers

Apple’s patent FIG. 5 illustrates an example of the wireless media player receiving the ping signal from a recognized merchant in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.

In this example, an instruction command 504 is issued from the customer preference file. The instruction command is passed to and executed by the processor, which in turn directs the wireless media player to open a graphical user interface (GUI) on a display that includes a list of items previously purchased from the merchant stored in the memory. In the described embodiment, each displayed item responds to a selection tool by causing the wireless media player to send a selection request that includes an indication of the item selected from the list to the merchant for additional processing. It should be noted that, typically, the list of items previously purchased by the user is stored locally in the memory.

However, in some cases it may be desirable to store customer information (such as the list of previously purchased items) on either or both the local server or the central server. In this way, even in those cases where a user purchases a new item or is using a different media player than would otherwise be used that does not have a current, or accurate, customer preference file for that particular user, the local server or remote server can be used to update, or synchronize, the local memory.

It should be noted that the customer preference file can be as dense or sparse as desired based on, for example, an amount of on-board memory storage available, personal preferences of a user, etc. In some cases, the wireless media player can have more than one user associated with it such as when two or more people share the wireless media player. In this case, each individual user would have a unique customer ID that would be entered manually by the user when they took current possession of the player. When multiple customer IDs are available, then each customer ID can point to a particular customer preference file unique to that customer ID.

Apple lists Anthony M. Fadell (Portola Valley, CA) as the sole inventor of this patent.
NOTICE: MacNN presents only a brief summary of patents with associated graphic(s) for journalistic news purposes as each such patent application and/or grant is revealed by the U.S. Patent & Trade Office. Readers are cautioned that the full text of any patent applications and/or grants should be read in its entirety for further details.

Written and researched by Neo.