Today the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that relates to a possible redesign of their AirPods Pro case that will provide users with a touch display. Users will use Siri to call-up apps like Apple Music, Apple TV+, Maps and more to interact with.

Interacting with a Touch Display on an AirPods Case

While today's AirPods cases simply carry a user's AirPods, Apple thinks that that there a further need for a headphone case to convey information to a user, through haptics and/or a display on the face of the case. Such methods and interfaces optionally complement conventional methods for controlling wireless headphones.

More interestingly, in some embodiments, the headphone case has a touch-sensitive display. In some embodiments, the headphone case has a graphical user interface (GUI), one or more processors, memory and one or more modules, programs or sets of instructions stored in the memory for performing multiple functions.

In some embodiments, the user interacts with the GUI primarily through finger contacts and gestures on the touch-sensitive surface or an Apple Pencil.

A headphone case may include displays, touch-sensitive surfaces, optionally one or more tactile output generators, optionally one or more device orientation sensors, and optionally an audio system, are provided with improved methods and interfaces for providing tactile outputs, thereby increasing the effectiveness, efficiency, and user satisfaction with such devices. Such methods and interfaces may complement or replace conventional methods for providing tactile outputs.

Below you'll find a wide range of patent figures relating to the case-display presenting various scenarios using various apps like Apple Music, Apple TV+, Maps, Weather and Audio Books.

The pink bubbles shown in the patent figures below represent Siri communicating with the user about an app or service. One image below will show you that "squeezing" the case could signal to change the audio mode on Apple TV+ content. 

Apple's patent that was published today by the U.S. Patent Office was originally filed back in September 2022.