Apple filed a new patent application which is going to help apple in diagnosing a troubled iPhone/iPod, or more precisely it will tell whether your iPhone/iPod has been abused (intentionally or unintentionally 
) by its owner. This new patent will not only detect whether your iPhone/iPod is subjected to moisture (on your device components) but heat, shock and tampering.
If any of these things happens with your device, it will log time-stamp, and after that Apple support personnel can retrieve the the information and use it for analysis on service claims (Apple always come with new ideas to screw their customers ). The application summary reveals that Apple hopes to save money on faulty warranty claims…
The Moisture sensor in iPhone’s and iPod touch
The extra sensors would make it easier for Apple to determine if a device malfunction was due to the user, or the hardware itself. For instance, if there’s a sudden drop, followed by an impact, then a moisture reading, it’s pretty clear the owner dropped it into water. The same goes for thermal events, like leaving a phone in a hot car, or having a sudden and excessive heat flare-up, caused, for example, by putting it in a microwave.
The tamper sensor will work like this: “opening the casing or housing of a device and adding, removing, or altering the internal components.” This may not even employ any additional hardware or software, and could use a simple adhesive strip that is broken once the casing is removed, as many other hardware makers employ.
A new process wherein one of these sensor events can disable the phone, or put it into a disabled state for its own protection. Suppose you dropped your phone in water, then this new sensor will immediately cut off the battery or the screen to protect internal components of your device. It could also keep the user from resetting it or retrieving data until taken to a support center, which may freak you out, say when you need to make an urgent call.
A recently-published Apple patent suggests that the company is developing a more sophisticated method of telling whether a device such as an iPod or iPhone has been abused by its owner. According to AppleInsider, the patent, entitled “Consumer Abuse Detection System and Method,” describes a system of water, thermal, shock, and other sensors that may detect and record potential device abuse, while at the same time disabling certain components such as screens, hard drives, processor memory, and/or removable media in order to protect them from damage.
As with all Apple patent filings, this does not necessarily represent any future product release or feature from Apple, although it offers evidence of the company’s current research efforts and possible long-term goals.
Head on to OnlyGizmos to read more about what amazing Patents Apple has registered
iPhone / iPod touch downloads
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