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Apple planning to automatically disable your iPhone at concerts and events

Apple wants to stop you from filming rock concerts and sporting events on your smartphone.

The company is working on technology that will automatically disable a person’s iPhone camera when it is used to film a live event.

Apple filed a patent application for the software 18 months ago, according to information obtained by The Times (behind paywall).

The software could stop ticket-holders to the Big Day Out, State of Origin and the NRL and AFL grand finals filming the occasion on their iPhone.

You are Apple’s bitch and you will like being Apples bitch.

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20 Responses to "Apple planning to automatically disable your iPhone at concerts and events"

cranky says:

June 17, 2011 at 1:08 am

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIP1okixlfE[/video]

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Hideo says:

June 17, 2011 at 2:08 am

bwaahahaaa aaahahahahaaaa iphone ahahahaaabwahahaaa

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Naiad says:

June 17, 2011 at 2:30 am

Ah…only a few months to go and I will be Google’s bitch.

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Ruze says:

June 17, 2011 at 2:31 am

Yet another reason not to join the apple cult.
FFS, if i buy something i expect to be able to use it however i damn well please! Afterall that is why one parts with their hard earned cashed. If they want to dictate how it is to be used, then they will have to give me one for FREE. Otherwise they can go out into the backyard and play a thrilling game of ‘hide and go fuck themselves!’.

To make matters worse, the dumb-arse apple users are not helping the situation, for they all seem to willingly bend over and cop a rough dry sodomy session from apple on a daily basis and not even seem to be slightly upset.
Apple users = GHEY!

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uzz32 says:

June 17, 2011 at 2:40 am

Good, so I don’t have to look out across a sea of bright fucking screens.

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kerb says:

June 17, 2011 at 4:05 am

uzz32;1674902 wrote: Good, so I don’t have to look out across a sea of bright fucking screens.

Agreed. Almost every concert these days looks like this from up the back:

At least back in the day lighters would get too hot to hold after 10 seconds.

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still life says:

June 17, 2011 at 4:55 am

I’ve really never understood why people film / photo on a mobile at gigs, the quality is always useless anyway.

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cranky says:

June 17, 2011 at 5:19 am

still life;1674925 wrote: I’ve really never understood why people film / photo on a mobile at gigs, the quality is always useless anyway.

I’ve taken some epic shots at gigs with my nokia n95 and my iphone. The trick is getting right up the front on the baracade so you have plenty of light.

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Zanadou says:

June 17, 2011 at 5:52 am

uzz32;1674902 wrote: Good, so I don’t have to look out across a sea of bright fucking screens.

Of which… this technology does nothing to prevent.

Think about it.

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GeeWhiz says:

June 17, 2011 at 10:38 am

considering how long it takes apple to implement new technology its not something to be concerned about till iphone 55

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TerraHertz says:

June 17, 2011 at 2:53 pm

What’s the bet Apple are also talking with police departments, who would very much like a way to disable people’s phones from taking videos while police [STRIKE]beat up women, children and guys in wheelchairs[/STRIKE] go about their business.

“Anybody trying to film an event with their iPhone would attract the attention of infra-red sensors installed at the venue. The sensors would instruct the iPhone to disable its camera.”

Hmm. Don’t have an iPhone, but the Nets say iPhone has no IR port. So how is the command sent to phones in an area? Where’s that patent? Ah…
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20068404-1/apple-patent-suggests-infrared-sensors-for-iphone/
And the patent:
http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220110128384%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20110128384&RS=DN/20110128384

Well well. Digital cameras tend to be sensitive to IR as well. So Apple propose to make a kind of IR digital signboard, and have it on stage. Invisible to humans, but the iPhone camera can see it, and read what it says. And what is says is “GTFO iPhone camera.”

Ha ha… the cnet author didn’t read the patent, or didn’t understand it. No IR port for the iPhone.

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uzz32 says:

June 17, 2011 at 6:09 pm

Black tape over IR port on phone OR camera. Prob solved.

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royale says:

June 17, 2011 at 8:54 pm

uzz32;1674994 wrote: Black tape over IR port on phone OR camera. Prob solved.

Dont buy over-priced over-hyped under-performing rubbish. Problem solved better.

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TerraHertz says:

June 17, 2011 at 11:56 pm

uzz32;1674994 wrote: Black tape over IR port on phone OR camera. Prob solved.

Ha ha! That’s what I started to write, but then thought ‘wait, does the iPhone _have_ an IR port?’ Checked… it doesn’t. See my post above for how this works.

tldr; You’d have to put the black tape over the camera lense. Kind of defeats the purpose.

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Colonel Kurtz says:

June 18, 2011 at 12:09 am

kerb;1674916 wrote: Agreed. Almost every concert these days looks like this from up the back:

.

Stop buying cheap tickets then tight arse

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uzz32 says:

June 18, 2011 at 12:10 am

TerraHertz;1675012 wrote: but then thought

See, there’s your problem right there.

Just blurt things out. It’s the only way people will know you’re an idiot. Works a treat for me.

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kerb says:

June 18, 2011 at 8:58 am

Colonel Kurtz;1675013 wrote: Stop buying cheap tickets then tight arse

There’s usually only one general admission ticket, and nothing stopping you from walking up to the front, but I like a modicum of personal space around me where I can stand without being squished up against sweaty fuckers & drink a beer and not end up wearing it….

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pinchy says:

June 18, 2011 at 12:12 pm

TerraHertz;1675012 wrote: Ha ha! That’s what I started to write, but then thought ‘wait, does the iPhone _have_ an IR port?’ Checked… it doesn’t. See my post above for how this works.

tldr; You’d have to put the black tape over the camera lense. Kind of defeats the purpose.

Most good digital cameras have an IR filter built in to protect the sensor from overheating from the sun’s IR wavelengths so this ‘security’ measure is pointless…. and with every other camera we can circumvent this ‘security’ measure by placing a small piece of glass in front of the camera – as glass is opaque to IR wavelengths.

Funnily enough, black tape probably wouldn’t work as many plastics are transparent to IR.

(try this at home, point your TV remote control at your web cam and press all the buttons – you’ll see the “white” light from the remote as the CMOS/CCD array is sensitive to IR wavelengths, now stick a sheet of glass in front and do the same thing)

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satori says:

June 18, 2011 at 11:10 pm

This ‘story’ is huge media beat up over nothing. Apple is not making this product. It is just a patent application.

If every patent application submitted by tech companies was reported as if it’s a product launch, tech news would be nothing but a joke. Perhaps it already is.

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TerraHertz says:

June 19, 2011 at 10:51 am

pinchy;1675058 wrote: … as glass is opaque to IR wavelengths. …
(try this at home, point your TV remote control at your web cam and press all the buttons – you’ll see the “white” light from the remote as the CMOS/CCD array is sensitive to IR wavelengths, now stick a sheet of glass in front and do the same thing)

It’s a pity you didn’t actually try this yourself, instead of just assuming what you ‘know’ is correct, and sharing your expertise with us. Because it is UV to which ordinary glass is fairly opaque, not IR. When was the last time you sat in sunlight through a window, and it didn’t feel warm? Otoh, try getting a suntan through window glass – not going to happen.

Btw, after reading your post and going ‘WTF?’, I just now actually tried your suggestion re digital camera and IR remote. Which I knew about & have done before, not to mention designing and building IR remote controlled systems. Never bothered to check IR attenuation by glass, since I’d been pretty certain ordinary glass is transparent to IR. Sure enough, a sheet of thick glass makes no difference whatsoever to the visibility of the IR from a remote control LED.
But there are some special glass types that are IR-opaque. Used for instance in some slide projectors, in front of the high brightness lamp so the slide film doesn’t overheat.
The glass filters on consumer halogen downlights are for UV filtering only – also not IR opaque (I just tried one.)

One cute thing about some CCD cameras being IR-sensitive, is that there’s at least one digital photo of the WTC tower where the 2nd plane was soon to hit, in which one can see the extremely bright (to the camera) dot of an IR laser target designator on the side of the building.

Oh and speaking of IR-transparent plastics, here’s something surprising. IR photography enthusiasts discovered that the media film in floppy disks is fairly IR-transparent, while nearly opaque to visible light. Try it – slide the cover back on a 3.5″ floppy, and do the IR-remote and CCD camera trick through the diskette film. You can see the IR LED. If you google you can find whole sites full of IR landscape pictures taken with digital cameras using floppy disk media as an optical filter.

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