Apple is back at it again. Apple has filed specific continuation patents relating to a future headset with each providing clues as to the nature or features that Apple is thinking of bringing to a future headset over time. The last two patent filings focused on telephony for their headset (one and two) along with presenting images to the user in two modes. Today's patent filing points to a camera to "overlay game content over a portion of the captured image" along with other features including the use of Siri, eye gaze controls and more.

The foundation of the patent has changed in years. What is continually changing are the patent claims that define a product and lays out what Apple wants protected in the patent. Today's most outstanding additions are noted below:

Patent Claim #1: A head-mounted apparatus, comprising: a frame; a display supported by the frame; a camera configured to capture an image; and lenses adjacent to the display through which the display is viewable, wherein the display is configured to present the captured image and is configured to overlay game content over a portion of the captured image.

Patent Claim #2: The head-mounted apparatus defined in claim 1, further comprising an optical sensor that gathers eye location information.

Patent Claim #5: The head-mounted apparatus defined in claim 4, further comprising: an accelerometer configured to gather accelerometer data that is used to control the speaker.

Patent Claim # 11: The head-mounted apparatus defined in claim 6, wherein the stimulus is a voice command and wherein the sensor is a microphone configured to detect the voice command.

Patent Claim #16: The head-mounted apparatus defined in claim 6, further comprising a haptic device that produces vibrations corresponding to the image based content.

Apple's patent application 20170011716 was only filed back in September 2016. It must be said once and awhile for newbies to patent reports, that patent graphics rarely represent a final product. The designs are simply to convey a basic concept and nothing more. Obviously a headset by Apple will be a very cool device with little to no resemblance to the patent figures found in Apple's patent filing. Considering that this is a patent application, the timing of such a product to market is unknown at this time.

On another note, another AirPods patent came to light today We're note wasting your time covering it again as we covered Apple's first two patents on AirPods back last month. Check it out here if you haven't seen it yet.

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