Stargate Halo

They should have used this for some HomePod advertisement..

Does Apple create fake company entities to conceal its published patent applications?

Wouldn’t that be at least some counterproductive to Apple, in terms of it’s valuation regarding patents that they have but don’t/haven’t/don’t-ever-intend-to-use? Of course, that assumes that anyone *cares* about that, unless “Time Apple” *really* screws up, it goes back 20 years and manages to drop to a few cents and become a takeover target.

But if Apple decided to license those (hypothetical) “never intend to use” patents.. Or to let them be used in ways that Apple would never actually *do* (because it was too complicated for “the simple folk” in terms of industrial/UX design").

Not sure if anyone here knows this off the top of their head (or if anyone will read it..), but I assume the BQ20Z451 is based around a coulomb counter. How much energy is “wasted” by the CC in the process of measuring?

What was the tar video *of*? <shoot[V]-foot[N.DO]-self[PRO.GEN] copyright rant> Some obscure scene in an obscure movie that would have actually served to advertise the movie to people who read iFixit? Wow - an opportunity for a movie company to perhaps *make money* from “copyright infringement” - *what a concept*!

What *is* this layer? I assume step 7 was the “e-paper” transflective-memory-lcd (whatever..), so what is this? It looks like it has a connector at the top though. (Too much to hope) An unused touch screen layer? (That would be *really* silly - surely it would cost too much if you’re not going to implement it. Unless maybe the space at the top-left of the board on step 6 (with 8 test[?]-points in a inverted L-shape) is a space for a chip?

Or is there already something there? It looks like there might be a 4-pin transistor with a pad of solder or something underneath it?

How much “less friendly” is it the battery-using-wires thing though? It looks (not having tried it) like soldering two actual wires to a board would be easier than the little SMT solder pads of the PT (PTS only?) battery.

I wonder if the processor can address that portion of the display (would require Fitbit-become-Google OSS-ing the firmware that they’ll never actually *use*, or writing/patching display routines new). A new bezel would have to be made of course.

Could the “not-really holes” have some "function” in terms of resonating sound or something? (I’m guessing unlikely) Though if the speaker is only right underneath the holes that really *are* holes - it’s hard to thing how any vibration would *get* to the rest of the case.

I’m surprised the Apple IC (blue) doesn’t have “P2” on it (P for “pencil”).. How does the “tap” work - is it a tap of the pen tip on a surface, or a finger tap/squeeze on the barrel of the pencil itself? The capacitance grid looks like it’s separated into “square-like-areas” (9x6 it looks like). Could this be to allow for multi-touch on different places? Something like different brushes in a graphics app depending on where you held the pen? (Say holding it with index and thumb - close to the tip end for a writing tool, middle for something like a paintbrush , or the “erase” end for something like a “spray-paint” or dodge/burn brush).

Or (either as an Apple joke, or a third-party joke) use said hypothetical multi-touch capacity to turn the Apple Pencil into a kazoo/flute? (Or a Ressikan flute penny whistle for the Star Trek fans?). But that would need a separate tip or some device to pick up the signals and transmit them over a longer distance - or does the Apple Pencil use “normal range” Bluetooth?

Is there a technical reason why the new pencil couldn’t be backward compatible to the first-gen iPad Pro? Or to allow for wireless charging on the old iPads, could Apple have made a thin smart-connector accessory that would get power from the smart connector and then have the necessary Qi-like charging coil to transmit to the ApplePen2. That would be a problem for the first gen non-Pro iPad, which doesn’t have a smart connector - but it could also have a lightning plug in the center.)

It seems that “buy the pencil now, upgrade to a new iPad pro later when you have the 2K to do so” marketing strategy might work. Though if you’re going to drop 2K on a new iPad, 0.12K for a new pencil really isn’t that much I guess.