Apple iKey Patent Allows You To Use Your iPhone As A Combination Lock

It seems that Apple’s iPhone can do almost anything nowadays, and if the latest tech from Apple’s iKey patent filing gets implemented, we’ll probably be able to unlock our front doors with our iPhone sometime in the near future. According to the patent, the iPhone could communicate with an external device to open a lock, and that could certainly be an RFID receiver. It’s worth noting that the app pictured above seems to have a combination lock, indicating that we’ll be able to unlock the lock by turning the iPhone just like we’d do to a traditional combination lock. It’s certainly a novel and cool idea. Could the iPhone 4G have a RFID chip included in it by default?

iKey patent. (PDF link)