Edible Apple

With Apple always looking to push the envelope, Patently Apple directs us to a newly published patent filing which details Apple’s efforts to develop new antenna technology which would be located behind Apple’s logo, enabling it to achieve a stronger signal without interference from the likes of surrounding metal, and since this is Apple, without being overtly conspicuous.

Apple’s solution involves logo antennas for electronic devices such as the MacBook and iPhone. The housing may contain conductive sidewalls. For example, the housing may be formed from a machined block of aluminum or other metals. The walls of the housing may be used to hold conductive components such as displays. Integrated circuits and other electronic components may be mounted within the housing.

A logo antenna may transmit and receive radio-frequency antenna signals through a dielectric window mounted in a housing wall. The logo antenna may have an antenna resonating element structure such as a patch antenna resonating element. The dielectric antenna window may serve as a logo. The dielectric antenna window may, for example, have the shape of a logo or may contain appropriate text or other visual logo attributes.

Apple’s patent description relays that the logo antenna will not be limited to Wi-Fi technology, but can potentially cover “wireless communications in cellular telephone bands such as the GSM bands at 850 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz and 1900 MHz and the 2100 MHz data band.” Not too surprisingly, Apple already employs a form of this technology in one of its current products – the iPad – where the antenna rests snugly behind the Apple logo.

A lot more over here at Patently Apple.