Apple has been granted 71 new patents according to Patently Apple. The patents include a number of interesting ideas that Apple has come up with. And while each individual patent is interesting, putting some of them together reveals some potentially interesting developments.
One thing to note is that not all patents end up turning into products or features. But they also give us insight into what Apple is thinking about.
Position sensors
Apple has been including gyroscopes and accelerometers in products for some time. The iPhone, iPad, Vision Pro and Apple Watch all include very sensitive sensors to detect position and movement. And for those who used a MacBook Pro or PowerBook back in the days of spinning hard drives, you might recall sensors that detected when a hard drive was under sudden acceleration or force that parked the read heads to protect data on the drive.
Patent 12307046, for a “Position Sensor“ was recently granted to Apple. It’s all about sensors that can detect the position of components like cables and hinges.
From the patent application:
An electronic device includes a first portion, a joint, a second portion adjustably connected to the first portion at the joint, a cable extending from the first portion to the second portion through the joint, and a processor electrically connected to the cable and a memory component storing electronic instructions that, when executed by the processor, configure to the electronic device to transmit data through the cable, the data having a bit error rate, and determine a position of the first portion relative to the second portion based on the bit error rate.
If we consider the highly anticipated folding iPhone, knowing how far the hinge is opened of closed could be useful for activating or deactivating certain features. But the application is much broader.
Similarly, it could be used on a laptop or tablet. Apple doesn’t make a folding tablet yet but adding smarts to the mechanical hinge in a laptop can enable it to control functions like screen brightness through algorithms. Or it could be used in concert with Centre Stage – the technology that enables webcams to follow people and correctly frame them while on camera – to ensure the camera adjusts if the screen moves.
It could be used in robotics to better detect and manage the position of a folding joint as it articulates.
Smart lenses
As someone that wears glasses, this is quite exciting. One of the hassles with current AR/VR systems is that they are a pain to use if you wear glasses. I have a Meta Quest and getting it comfortable adjusted while wearing glasses is annoying. And that’s compounded by the fact I have multi-focal lenses which means I have to get the adjustment perfect so I can have the entire display in perfect focus.
Frankly, it’s almost impossible.
Patent 12306472 is really interesting. Patently Apple’s description covers it nicely:
Apple’s granted patent 12306472 covers a pair of smartglasses that may include one or more adjustable lenses. An adjustable lens may include a stack of liquid crystal cells with passive matrix electrode arrays. Each passive matrix electrode array may include a pair of orthogonal electrodes that are rotated relative to other pairs of orthogonal electrodes in the stack. Control circuitry may apply different voltage profiles to the passive matrix electrode arrays to create the desired lens characteristics in the adjustable lens. The voltage profiles may be based on a stored look-up table that maps different target lens characteristics to different voltage profiles for the passive matrix electrode arrays. The target lens characteristics may include at least one of a target lens power and a target optical aberration correction. The look-up table may be based on information gathered during design and manufacturing using numerical optimization techniques.
This could be applied to a headset like the Vision Pro, which can be fitted with prescription lenses, smartglasses or the display glass or camera lens on a phone, tablet or laptop. And there’s a clear application in robotics by giving robots the ability to better process their surroundings.
Apple’s ongoing interest in health is also a place where this patent could find a place. Apple has already applied its experience with earbuds into hearing by making the AirPods Pro into a set of low-cost hearing aids. Could they do the same for glasses?
Imagine doing an at-home eye test using your Mac or iPhone and then having the glasses automatically adjust to accomodate your vision. And forget about multifocal – the glasses could use LiDAR sensors to detect how far away the objects you’re looking at are and dynamically adjust the lenses to give you optimal vision.
Robotics, cars and virtual reality
Much was made of Apple’s ambitions to enter the car business. Project Titan was a moonshot project that never delivered a single commercially available vehicle. But it was not a failure. Many of the technologies from the endeavour have been applied in other products.
Augmented and virtual reality features have landed in the Vision Pro. The experience gained in developing and using LiDAR sensors has been applied in iPhones and other devices.
One of Apple’s strengths has been its ability to take ideas from one product and apply them to others. It’s important to remember that the first touchscreen device under development at Apple was the iPad. Another team was working on a new smartphone and the technology originally developed for a tablet ended up in the phone first.
It’s possible that somewhere deep in the bowels of Apple’s HQ that a team is working on a robotics project and came up with an idea. That team shared their idea with a team working on a different project and the cross-pollination will end up in some completely different project or idea.
These patent applications suggest something similar. The broad application of these patents points to interesting developments that could be seen in a diverse array of products.
Anthony is the founder of Australian Apple News. He is a long-time Apple user and former editor of Australian Macworld. He has contributed to many technology magazines and newspapers as well as appearing regularly on radio and occasionally on TV.