From PC Mag: Apple has secured a new patent that hints at its ambitions to roll out more robust satellite communications for future iPhones.
The patent, granted on Wednesday, focuses on one of the challenges facing satellite communications: A device like a smartphone can struggle to maintain a connection, given that orbiting satellites stay are in the sky briefly before falling out of view.
As Patently Apple reports, the company's patent proposes a “handover procedure,” ensuring that one communication beam from an orbiting satellite will smoothly transition to a second beam from a separate satellite. Thus, each satellite functions as a “transparent network relay node,” enabling groups of smartphones to remain connected, Apple wrote in the filing.
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