You may not be able to profit from selling the protected device but if anyone else does you can take all their money.

Well, they've got what looks suspiciously like an SL-1200 in that image. Wonder if they've got/need permissions to include artwork like that in their patent filings.

I noticed that too. But as it is a drawing, and used for a non commercial purposes (they aren't making money off the patent drawing) I don't think Technics could successfully sue even if they cared.

Plenty of DJs still use SL1200s but aren't buying a bunch of vinyl for what they play. There are specially coded records that are a series of timing marks. Inputting the turntables output to a computer it uses that timing against an audio file so you can drop the needle in any point on the coded vinyl and it will skip to that point in the audio file, adjust pitch control faster it will play the audio file faster, scratch (in a DJ sense) the vinyl it will act as if you were scratching the audio file.

The "modular" bit that connects to an iPad is probably something that includes an A to D converter to digitize the SL1200's output, connecting to the iPad via USB-C. I doubt they would produce an actual turntable module, this would just be something that interfaces the SL1200 to the iPad for club DJs. The club would presumably already have the SL1200s and a mixing board, so you'd need two iPads to make this work. You could get by with one, but having two would provide you some backup in case one of them broke or some clubgirl in the booth spills a drink on it.

Apple has never gone after anyone for violating one of their patents for something that isn't and never will be a product. Like many big companies engineers sometimes have flights of fancy exploring stuff, and patent that fancy because they get a better raise having patents in their CV.

It's a docking station. A docking station potentially with a screen. Also a docking station potentially with a screen and a keyboard (otherwise known as a laptop). And you can connect things to it, like you have been able to do with cables for quite a while... I'm kinda failing to see the innovation here, or what there is to be excited about.

Laptops are regularly connected up to Decks (sorry Turntables for the older generation). It's incredibly common to mix records and digital music during a set these days. And on the mixer you see all the info you need, so I'm kinda wondering what the purpose of the screen behind the Deck would be. It certainly would be less convenient to put the controls behind the deck. So easy to bump the arm whilst fiddling with a setting) and digital controls suck on a mixer! So I really dont see the point...

A modular laptop could be interesting admittedly. We already have modular computers (there called Desktops or Towers), but a modular laptop could (big could!) be interesting. But, considering that laptops are designed to run in one configuration and one configuration only, due to things like cooling being a right bugger to make work in such a small form factor, I cant really imagine these will be modular in the way that we would actually want (being able to swap out memory, graphics cards, chips, etc.), I'd bet there basically just talking about swapping peripherals (like we already do using cables!).

So I guess this is good for the Apple hype train, but I'm failing to see anything to dance about...

I wonder if the US conflate patents (with genuine innovation) with registered designs (like breakfast cereals). The docking station thing clearly does not have any substantial innovation but Apple might want to protect a design concept.

No, it's an Apple docking station.

If Apple talks about it, it's new !

And records have rounded corners, so that's in Apple's wheelhouse.

> I'm kinda failing to see the innovation here, or what there is to be excited about.

There's a whole new revenue stream at Apple that you can throw money in to.

Unless apple have done something innovative with the joint between the various modules, I fail to see why this patent was granted.

Money?

"the joint between the various modules"

So that's where I dropped it! Ta. Now I'm ready to create some more Apple patents.

It would be nice if they could hurry up and build those holographic displays you see so much of in sci fi films. Having to plug into some tatty old hardware on a remote site is not tte best experience. I suppose I could shell out for Apple’s goggles, I could have as big a screen as I want then, but a little thingy out of which a screen magically appears would be much more fun.

"I'm not quite loving your remix"

"That's not a remix, that's direct from vinyl"

"But it sounds a bit duff"

"What's wrong?"

"Well the drums seem out of sync"

"Err....Yes I see what you mean, but that isn't the drums. That's the sound of me typing on the keyboard and being carried through all the hard connections to the record deck"

"Sounds a bit crap,if you ask me"

"Yeah, I think you're right"

"I'd ask for your money back if I were you"

it was something novel like getting the iDevice to scan the vinyl directly into the music library with it's super-duper integrated laser and beam it round the house.

But would the iTurn be more expensive than Jonny Ives Linn version ?

Probably.

As you reach past the turntable to tap the iPhone screen.

Next patent: we turn the UI text upside down then tell you to turn the iPad over: ta da, all the Ok/Cancel/... buttons are at the top of the display and you can reach them the tone arm.[1]

[1] multi-line dialogues being against the minimalist design ethic, so if the text is now backwards return the software as "not cool enough to be on the iPad" (Ts&Cs of the Apple Store, clause 17d).

Or 4/1/21 in left pondian.

Anyone that endured more than a decade of vinyls before the advent of the CD can only imagine insanity is behind any ressurrection of the LP.

Is Apple going to have the turntable spin in the opposite direction (ccw) as a drm mechanism? Or digitally encode the audio in their vinyl?

The first CD I heard was a test CD with a recording of Pachelbel's Canon in D and I reckon within sixty seconds I had pronounced the vinyl LP deader than a Norweigian Blue.

All the fFaffing about with antistatic sprays and cleaners and replacing styli and adjusting tone arm weights and anti-skate settings and whatnot... madness. Remembering the preamp also had apply RIAA equalization to "correct" the distortion intrinsic in the mechanical pickup... lunacy. Try telling that to the youth today... they don't believe you. I wouldn't either.

I would have believed that you were doing what you say, when you said, right up until the point I realised you had typed "vinyls". That is a much more recent term than the decade before CDs became common.

The only thing I miss about vinyl is gatefold sleeves. Oh, and maybe the quest you had to sometimes go on to find an album that wasn't stocked by the mainstream outlets (Woollies, WH Smith, Boots, etc).

https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/10/jony_ive_linn_turntable/

Or there is an adapter for only $5k USD

So... this patent is either to get money out of someone else's work or to discourage someone else again from innovating.

Which is it?

Plugged my turntable into my netbook computer years ago.

Well, that's about the level of "innovation" described here, isn't it?

No one who has done any DJing would want to be reaching over the turntable and prodding at an Ipad behind it like as shown on the diagram. You are asking to accidentally knock the record deck and cause the record to skip doing that.

And if you aren't touching the screen I don't see what use it would have, other than maybe a visualizer showing pretty patterns in time with the music played?