This one has been all over the interweb today, so being an Apple fanboy of sorts (within reason...no logo tattoos, but there is a sticker on my car), I thought I'd throw in my two cents. As the Apple-devoted often do, someone was watching the patent office (Apple's major achilles heel in their silencing of rumour mills) for anything they might be working on when this little gem surfaced. Based on an Apple patent filing, it would seem that Apple is working on some kind of "activity monitor" for snowboarding. Able to measure air, speed, distance and all kinds of things (better have a "rad" meter so you can keep your "rad" in check), it's an interesting experiment in taking the guess work out of that "50 foot table" that is really 30 feet.

I remember when my bindings were mounted like that...it sucked.

There's definitely some merits to this, but the cynic in me has so many questions.

• What kind of system could be developed that it isn't gear-depenent (can work with any board) and can still provide accurate results?
• How is anything you add to a snowboard not going to affect how it rides?
• Are they even trying to make something for the public, or would it just be used for technical measurements? (not like to Apple not make something that isn't for the public)
• Why snowboarding or all things? Aside from lots of snowboarders being Apple-lovers, I don't see the connection...

And really, like Boardistan said, I don't know if I need numbers to back up how much I suck.

Holy shit...why didn't I think of that?!?

At least whoever filed the patent has a sense of humour:

"For example, suppose two users ski only blue, intermediate slopes with the exact same skill and aggressiveness except that one user chooses to sit in the bar for three hours having a couple of cocktails. At the end of an eight hour day--providing the power sensor is activated for the whole day--the skier who skied all eight hours will have a power measurement that is 8/5 that of his cocktail-drinking companion. They can thereafter quantitatively talk about how easy or how difficult their ski day was. As for another example, suppose a third friend skis only double-diamond slopes and he takes four hours out to drink beer. At the end of the day, his power measure may still be greater than his friends depending upon how hard he skied during his active time. He could therefore boast--with quantitative power data to back him up--that he had more exercise than either of his friends even though he was drinking half the day."

I think I know these people...