The rise of the internet has seemingly given anyone who wanted it a soapbox for them to climb aboard and broadcast their opinions to the rest of the world. Over time, there has been a definite move towards individual “citizen journalists” and Apple is preparing to make moves to make that function a little bit easier.
Already, mobile devices such as the iPhone are allowing us to interact with people using instant messaging apps such as IM+ Video to talk with text as well as with pictures and sound. Of course there are also truly fun things to be done using the iPhone such as having the ability to actually control a miniature remote control helicopter as well. Of course there are also truly important things that can be done with the iPhone and one of the most important these days is having the ability to record stories and reports from your own little corner of the world.
Since it was first introduced, CNN’s iReport has been a phenomenal hit. Over 750,000 different people have decided that the national news outlets are still missing some pretty interesting stories and have registered as official iReporters, meaning they have actually submitted at least one peace to the news network’s official iReport site. A new patent filing by Apple shows that there may soon be new features that will allow the iPhone to serve as somethinkg like a miniature camera and mic crew.
The features, which are simply referred to in the filing as “report” and “interview” will take advantage of certain things the iPhone can already do, but will also unlock features previously existent but not actually utilized. The first one that will make putting a report together easier is that the dual cameras on the iPhone (that you thought were only good for “Facetime”) will be able to switch back and forth between an interviewer and an interviewee almost seamlessly. The device will be able to do this by actually using voice recognition protocols to spark the change from one camera to the other, meaning that the person making the report will be able to focus on the interview rather than hitting a button.
Of course this kind of tech can have other uses as well, including being able to have a sort of Facetime three way call if two people are in one spot, but whatever iPhone users decide to implement it for, it should be a cool new addition to the device.
