Odd Apple patent for embedded OS ads
Apple recently applied for a patent which describes a method by which the manufacturer of an operating system could disable certain OS functions until the user looked at an advertisement.
It is very difficult to tell where this may lead, but one can hope that it does not lead in the exact direction suggested by the patent language. Essentially, the patent describes a method whereby a computer and operating system manufacturer could embed ads in their operating system and force users to watch them by denying the user access to certain operating system functions until the ads were acknowledged or some sort of payment is made, according to a PCMag article. What is that you say? Doesn’t sound at all like Apple? Well, here are a few quotes from the patent itself:
A computer-implemented method for providing an advertisement in a device, the method comprising:providing an operating system of a device with at least one advertisement, the operating system configured to temporarily disable a function thereof and present the advertisement in the device while the function is disabled; and receiving a report from the device confirming that the advertisement has been presented.
In return for paying attention to the advertisements, the user can receive a product or service for free or at reduced cost, or otherwise receive a benefit.
While the presentation of advertisements is described in examples herein with respect to a personal computer, it should be apparent that the disclosed implementations can be incorporated in, or integrated with, any electronic device, e.g., a device that has a visual user interface, including without limitation, portable and desktop computers, servers, electronics, media players, game devices, mobile phones, wireless devices, email devices, personal digital assistants (PDAs), embedded devices, televisions, set top boxes, etc.
The approaches for verifying user presence can be made progressively more aggressive if the user has failed a previous test. For example, after the user fails the test the first time, the subsequent tests can be made to appear more frequently or at varying times. As another example, the test(s) can be made more subtle so as to render them more difficult to perceive, such as by reducing the size of a message box on the screen, or by making an audio prompt more similar to the advertisement in which it is inserted.
This seems a bit over the top in an Orwellian sort of way, but there it is. It is difficult to imagine turning on your Mac in the morning and having to sit through a video about the latest iPods before being allowed to check your email. One must hope that this particular patent does not represent the current plans of Apple, since plans such as this one are even more Draconian than life with a copy of Windows. Perhaps they just needed to get this out of their system…
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November 18th, 2009
Let’s hope they want the patent in order to license it to their competition.