Patent Watch: And Now... iTravel
April 21, 2010
Apple is certainly not out of ideas for our dear iPhones and Patently Apple just scooped yet another iConcept today, this time focusing on travel.
Once again, it's nothing really new since most airlines already offer mobile boarding cards, at least on short-haul flights. I'm actually using these quite a lot and well; while it is indeed convenient, the concept is a bit flawed. First of all, it takes simply too much time to find and display your boarding card, and second, it's not standardized enough with every airline using a different own system.
iTravel, Apple's freshly patented take on iPhone-powered travel, is pretty much just like iTicket which we told about last week. In short, it would allow you to manage your travel planning right of your iPhone while also using it as a mobile ticket. All of this by leveraging near-field communication technology.
Sounds like a great concept to me; hopefully they end up implementing it and airlines will play along.
