Mostly known for its premium laptops and iPhones, Apple is also known to file a lot of patents. We’ve seen blankets, known as iSheet, and some other smart sleep tech as well from the company. Will they see the light of day? No one knows… But it won’t stop the company from coming out with these new techs. (I would call it innovation, but there are others who already beat Apple to it!)
Anyways, the latest in the company’s patent line is Apple AR Glasses! Now, there were rumors about the company working on augmented reality technology, but this time, it might be official. The once-upon-a-time trillion dollar company filed a patent that teases a wearable tech that can be used with your iPhone.
AR is not new for Apple, though. It started its venture in the AR world with ARKit – its Augmented Reality platform for developers. And that brought us a lot of apps on iPads and iPhones.
According to Patently Apple, the patent which was submitted August 2018, is titled Systems, Methods and Graphical User Interfaces for Interacting With Augmented and Virtual Reality Environments. That’s quite a lot to take in, but of course, we will see a shorter version of it when / if it comes out commercially. The patent shows the creation of a virtual user interface that can be used on a device looking like an iPhone as well as a wireless headset.
The headset will provide a live view of a portion of the contents that are visible in the line-of-sight of the camera, and can generate video outputs. Users can, then, use a “touch sensitive device” or an iPhone / iPad to interact with the augmented reality environment.
Now, Apple has already previously filed a patent for an AR headset, back in 2017. And last year, the company described using a mixed reality headset for image editing, drawing, presentation, making calls, etc. And now, they’re investigating touch panels, voice activation via Siri, and head gestures to control the glasses. So, this only confirms we’ll be seeing AR devices from the company soon.
