Apple Files Patent on Logo Antenna

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You’ve got to give Apple due credit for their design concepts, and their constant pushing of the envelope–even if it doesn’t always pan out like the whole Antennagate thing showed us over and over for weeks–because they’ve just filed a new patent on a possible way to prevent such issues in the future: an antenna built into the Apple logo.

It’s not so much that the logo itself is the antenna, (word is that Dell was looking to do something like that and put the patent out on same) but rather that the antenna forms a window for the logo, allowing it to be safely ensconced in the chassis but not easily blocked by us fat-fingered human beings who are just holding the darn thing wrong. And in some cases, this is already in progress, apparently: the iPad was recently discovered by some to have an antenna built around the logo.

Now here’s the part that’s a bit of a surprise: Apple’s patent not only shows how you can get logo antennas in desktops, laptops, tablets, and other devices like cell phones, but as it turns out, reports suggest that the patent also shows off other possibilities for logo antennas, like netbooks, wrist watches, and “other wearable devices”.

Does that mean that Apple’s looking to work out a line of ultraportable net-surfing devices you can wear on your person? Not necessarily. But we’ve seen some strange stuff from Apple before, and putting anything past them is generally a bad bet. Speculative in the extreme, I know…but why would they make mention, in a patent, of possible things that could be done with their new tech if they didn’t have at least some interest in making them happen?

Maybe Apple’s got some interesting new devices in the pipe for us, and frankly, I look forward to seeing where this patent takes them.