Whether they'll do it isn't the point. If a patent is, by its nature, meant to restrict user and citizen freedom, why have it?
If your neighbor collects guns, that may be no cause for alarm; hunting is a legitimate activity. But if your neighbor stockpiles napalm, his saying "I wouldn't use it" isn't very reassuring. It has no purpose but to burn you to death.
The only charitable reading I can see of this patent is that Apple patented it to keep its evil competitors from using this. But that's highly dubious. If that's what they wanted to do, they could have openly said so and immediately donated the patent to the EFF or someone like that.
Apple has a lot of legitimate IP business. They have in-house IP counsel. They retain outside IP counsel. It's inevitable that this group and process has grown into a bureaucratic fiefdom that exists to secure patents and trademarks for their own purposes, regardless of their applicability to Apple's business or plans.
That they pursued such a patent and retained it is evidence of little more than the existence of a report somewhere that conflates the quantity of patents to the effectiveness of the group.
I mean, what's really easier to believe? That a corporate group is following the trajectory of every studied social construct of man [1]. Or that the only consumer-focused computer maker is conspiring to shaft their paying customers in deference to a (comparatively tiny) industry they've long treated with borderline-contempt?
[1] becoming focused on its own interests at the expense of those it was created to further
I'm sure that the Canada is not alarmed that the US is stockpiling napalm amongst other things. Whilst, it has no legitimate purpose except to burn people to death---Canada is not the enemy of the USA, and thus feels that it has nothing to fear from its neighbor stockpiling weapons.
Weapons are meant to be used against an enemy. If your neighbor isn't the sort to begin wars of conquest, then what do you really have to fear?
If your neighbor collects guns, that may be no cause for alarm; hunting is a legitimate activity. But if your neighbor stockpiles napalm, his saying "I wouldn't use it" isn't very reassuring. It has no purpose but to burn you to death.
The only charitable reading I can see of this patent is that Apple patented it to keep its evil competitors from using this. But that's highly dubious. If that's what they wanted to do, they could have openly said so and immediately donated the patent to the EFF or someone like that.