Apple looking to turn the iPhone into an intelligent universal media, ‘smart home’ remote control
An Apple patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday describes a method in which a portable device, like the iPhone, can save, manage and recall entertainment and “smart home” system settings, called “scenes.”
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple's remote-control ambitions have been accumulating in the patent record for years: a patent teased in March 2012 sketched an advanced TV remote, building on a 2007 filing covering media data exchange between portable devices. Tuesday's publication extends that line beyond entertainment into home automation, describing the iPhone saving, managing and recalling "scenes" — bundled settings spanning both media systems and smart-home gear.
The timing matters because of scale: with more than 600 million iOS devices sold as of mid-August 2013, any control-layer play Apple files around already has the largest installed base in mobile to sit on top of. The story traveled unusually widely for a patent item, picked up same-day by TechCrunch, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, SlashGear and four other outlets.
First-order effects
- iPhone owners gain a documented path to using one device as both media remote and smart-home controller, replacing per-device remotes and single-purpose automation apps with recalled "scenes."
Second-order effects
- TV makers and connected-appliance vendors face a fork: open their gear to Apple's scene framework or risk being dumb endpoints inside an ecosystem where the phone routes every command — while rivals' standalone remotes and home-automation hubs compete against software Apple can ship free to hundreds of millions of devices.
Third-order effects
- If filings like this mature into shipping features, the smartphone consolidates household control — whoever owns the scene layer decides which TVs, locks, lights and appliances are first-class citizens, turning device compatibility into a platform-gatekeeper question.
The trend: Apple is methodically patenting its way toward making the iPhone the universal control surface for the living room and the smart home, converging media and home automation onto one platform.