Apple patents its cloud-based ‘locker’ called ‘Safe Deposit Box’

Recently, multiple reports emerged claiming that Apple is hard at work at a MobileMe revamp, which includes a “locker” to store your personal files like music, pictures, and videos. Well today, Patently Apple reports that Apple has patented a new feature for Mac OS X called “Safe Deposit Box.” This “Safe Deposit Box” is a new feature on the Mac OS X desktop that allows you drag a file you want to keep super-secure to the box and it will be uploaded to the cloud with encryption.

We speculate that this upcoming feature will tie right in with iOS and whichever files you put in your “Safe Deposit Box” will show up in a new app made by Apple for MobileMe members and if the user uploads any media (music, videos, and pictures) it will automatically show up their respective iOS applications. This service will surely replace Apple’s long-existing iDisk feature as they are essentially the same thing, but “Safe Deposit Box” seems more intuitive and more secure.

This new service from Apple could even be a replacement for external hard drives. People use external hard drives for computer backups in case the information on their computer is lost or stolen. If that information is stolen, the chances of your external hard drive being stolen are pretty high as well. This new solution would allow users to use Apple’s new giant data center in North Carolina. Perhaps this will be “another reason to own a Mac.”

The well informed John Gruber over at Daring Fireball even heard that Apple is working on a “Dropbox killer” for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, so perhaps this ties in directly with that, too. For the technical side of this new patent be sure to check out Patently Apple‘s full rundown.