Patently Apple was first to discover two European patent filings from Apple on the topic of 8K foveated displays for use in Apple's future headset. Our first report on this was published in February 2018 titled "A Euro Patent Reveals Apple is working on an 8K Foveated Micro-Display for a Head-up Display, iDevice and beyond." We posted a second report on foveated displays in March 2018 and finally a third based on a U.S. patent application in August 2018. The three previous patent reports are jam packed with illustrations detailing the foveated display along with gaze controls that you should check out further if this topic is of interest to you.

Today the US Patent & Trademark Office published Apple's fourth patent on this kind of display that is simply titled "Foveated Display."

Apple's patent FIG. 2 below is a diagram showing how an electronic device may have a pair of displays each having lower resolution and higher resolution areas; FIG. 3 is a diagram showing how an electronic device may have a display with a higher resolution central area flanked by lower resolution peripheral areas.

Apple's patent FIG. 14 above is a diagram of data line driver circuitry that may be used to control data lines in a display with different areas having different resolutions.

Apple's patent covers a head mounted display device that may use a single wide display or a pair of displays. The device may take on the appearance of a pair of glasses or full headset. One or all of the devices could be used to display Virtual Reality. One of more designs could use transparent displays for use in glasses that could display Augmented Reality.

The glasses may be provided with optical mixers such as half-silvered mirrors to allow a user/viewer to simultaneously view images on displays #20 (in the figures above) and external objects in the surrounding environment at the same time.

Apple notes that on the high end of the spectrum, the foveated display may provide between 1,000 and 2,000 pixels per inch. In 2016 Sharp produced a 1,000 ppi display for a VR headset and in 2017 Japan Display was working on 1,000 ppi headset display that they were hoping to see in 2018-2019.

So a 2,000 ppi maxed-out foveated display that Apple is aiming for would be twice as clear as anything out today. Of course this will only matter if Apple gets such a headset out to market in a timely manner.

Apple's patent application 20190172399 is a highly technical patent for consumers to digest for the most part, but for engineers, especially optical engineers it's worth checking out here. Apple filed this application in February 2019 which was made public today.

Some of the Inventors

Paolo Sacchetto:  Director, Display Electrical Engineering at Apple

Bennett Wilburn: Senior Display Exploration Engineer

Graham Myhre, PhD: Senior Engineering Manager of Display Exploration

Fletcher Rothkopf: Senior Director of Product Design, Technology Development

Mike Dorjgotov: Engineering Manager

David Lum: Senior System Architect

About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Those using abusive language or negative behavior will result in being blacklisted on Disqus.