Hasta La Gadget!

Even if Apple never develops anything with the majority of their patents, the documents themselves are always interesting looks into what the world’s biggest tech company might be up to in the future. On Thursday, the blog Patently Apple showed off documents that suggest the company is looking into embedding scanning technology within its displays. These sensors would have two settings: scanning mode and mouse mode.

Scanning mode would allow the device to read any printed information when placed up against its screen. Instead of using the camera on the back to read printed material, you could just hold the screen against a QR code or page of printed text and the i-whatever would scan it in. Unlike traditional handheld scanners, this patent lets the user selectively fill in the document, scanning in sections without the pain of maintaining a straight line and constant speed.

The patent also includes the ability to check the position of the device using the sensors, letting a face-down iPhone connect to a computer and be used as a mouse. Of course, this implies that there would have to be some way of clicking the mouse, and Patently Apple suggests a multi-touch surface on the rear of the device, in a similar style to Sony’s NGP.

Now, there’s no guarantee of any of these things showing up in the iPad 2 or iPhone 5, but it does provide a unique window into what Apple thinks might be part of the next generation of consumer electronics. And that future looks pretty cool.

[via Patently Apple, US Patent and Trademark Office]

The Opera browser is coming to the iPad. That revelation came sandwiched toward the
bottom of a recent press release celebrating the company’s massive installation base. Shedding some light on its plans for the upcoming Mobile World Congress convention in Barcelona, the company wrote, “the Opera Mini browser on Android, iPhone, J2ME, BlackBerry, Symbian and even the iPad will appear.”

“Appear” seems to be an operative word here. The app won’t actually be made available around the event–rather, the company will be showing it off. Sort of a proof of concept. Once Opera Mini for iPad is completed, there’s still the Apple vetting process to contend with.

Of course, Apple has gotten past Apple’s process before. The iPhone version of the app managed to rack up 2.6 million downloads in its first two weeks.

It’s February, and we still haven’t seen the iPad 2. Given Apple’s traditional one year product release schedule, it seems crazy to suggest that the iPad 3 might actually hit store shelves before this holiday season, but there you have it. While the rest of us are still obsessively examining leaked photos of iPad 2 parts, Daring Fireball’s John Gruber is heralding the release of its successor. 

Writing in response to yesterday’s HP Touchpad announcement, Gruber states, “If my theory is right, they’re not only going to be months behind the iPad 2, but if they slip until late summer, they might bump up against the release of the iPad 3.”

Gruber clarified his statement in a followup post, writing, “my gut feeling is that Apple will move the iPad to a September release schedule, alongside the iPods. But they wouldn’t want to wait over a year and a half from the announcement of the original iPad to announce the second one–not with these stakes, and not with so many serious competitors trying their best to catch up.”

The words “gut feeling” are important here. As Gruber states earlier in the post, “when I say I’m guessing, I’m really guessing.” These are speculations of a blogger who doesn’t claim to have any special insight into this release schedule. It’s an interesting concept, nonetheless, with the company announcing two separate iPads in the same year to correct what he sees as a faulty release schedule.

According to this theory, the iPad 2 will ship in April. It will be thinner and lighter with more RAM, more storage, and a front-facing camera. iOS will be announced in March and shipped in June.

The iPad 3, meanwhile, will start shipping in September, alongside a new iPod touch. Gruber thinks the third version won’t kick the iPad 2 out of the line–instead it will be a high end version of tablet, sort of the MacBook Pro to the iPad 2’s MacBook, perhaps with a higher resolution display.

Remember that new confession app we told you about yesterday? Senior church officials in the U.S. were pretty keen on the thing, giving “Confession: A Roman Catholic App” the thumbs up. The Vatican, however, wants to clear something up.

Vatian spokesman Father Federico Lombardi told the press, “One cannot speak in any way of confessing via iPhone.” The confessor and a priest have to be in the same room for the whole confession thing to work, apparently. He added, “This cannot be substituted by any IT application.”

The app itself is intended to supplement, not replace in-person confession.