New iPhone Might Shut Off Next Time You Try To Film In Public

Apple was granted a patent last month that allowed someone to shut down photo and video recording on all nearby iPhones – say if you were photographing the police or a concert.

The patent uses an infrared signal that would be received by appropriately equipped iPhones to disable the camera.

Think about who might like that –

(a) Someone goes to a rock concert and before the concert is even over, a video of the concert is posted on Facebook or YouTube, or

(b) There is a demonstration and some activists want to film the actions of the police.

There are probably an unlimited number of possibilities, both positive and negative – governments worldwide, repressive and otherwise, businesses and celebrities.  How  many politicians would love to be able to shut down recording of an event to control their message?

People who do not want incidents recorded have been known to confiscate or destroy phones.  This would be much simpler.

Of course, *IF* Apple decided to integrate that into a future phone, I assume that would not work on their competitor’s phones – Android or Windows.

From a competitive perspective, I think that implementing such a feature would be a marketing disaster for Apple, but you never know what people might think.

The author of the source article reached out to Apple for comment, but has not received a response.  Given Apple’s normal penchant for secrecy, it is not clear that they would say anything no matter what they are thinking of using it for.

On the other hand, some governments might require that as a condition of selling their handsets in that country.

I learned a long time ago – never say never.

Information for this post came from Mic.com .

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