Telephone Interface for a Portable Communication Device

Filed July 24th, 2006

Yes, that’s a drawing of an iPod with a rotary telephone-like dial on its screen, and it’s being used to do something that looks suspiciously like dialing a telephone number. Considering that this patent was filed less than six months before the iPhone was announced, when speculation about an Apple phone had already reached fever pitch, I’m tempted to accuse Apple of filing a red-herring patent to throw gossipmongers off the trail of what the real one would look like. But there’s probably some method to this patent filing’s apparent madness. (It is, incidentally, one of the relatively few to bear the name of Steven P. Jobs as one of the inventors.)