Today the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that relates to an omnidirectional acoustic device (speaker) that could be implemented as a stationary apparatus (e.g., a conference room or other room within a building) or a moveable apparatus (e.g., a vehicle such as an autonomous or semiautonomous vehicle, a train car, an airplane, a boat, a ship, a helicopter, etc.) that can be temporarily occupied by one or more human occupants. The emphasis in the patent is on an omnidirectional speaker for a vehicle.

Implementations of the subject technology found in Apple's patent application provides a directional acoustic device that can be implemented in various environments and/or apparatuses, such as apparatuses that include an enclosed environment. In one or more implementations, the directional acoustic device may be a directional speaker. A directional speaker, as described herein, may be a speaker that has an acoustic port through which sound (e.g., generated by a moving diaphragm or other sound-generating component) is projected, a back volume, and an elongated channel fluidly coupled to the back volume and configured to output sound from the back volume. Because the sound from the back volume will have a polarity (e.g., a negative polarity) that is opposite to a polarity (e.g., a positive polarity) output from the acoustic port, the sound from the back volume may cancel a portion of the sound from the acoustic port, in a direction defined by the arrangement of the elongated channel. In one or more implementations, a directional speaker may have more than one elongated channel fluidly coupled to the rear volume of the speaker.

Apple's patent FIGS. 1 and 2 below illustrate aspects of an example apparatus in accordance with one or more implementations. According to Apple, FIG. 2 relates to a vehicle. The patent notes: "the safety components #116 may include one or more seatbelts, one or more airbags, a roll cage, one or more fire-suppression components, one or more reinforcement structures, or the like. As examples, the platform 142 may include a floor, a portion of the ground, or a chassis of a vehicle."

Later on, Apple notes that in one or more implementations, the apparatus #100 may be implemented as a moveable platform such as a vehicle (e.g., an autonomous vehicle that navigates roadways using sensors and/or cameras and substantially without control by a human operator, a semiautonomous that includes human operator controls and that navigates roadways using sensors and/or cameras with the supervision of a human operator, or a vehicle with the capability of switching between a fully autonomous driving mode, a semiautonomous driving mode, and/or a human controlled mode). In various versions of such an implementation, any or all of the seats of the apparatus may be oriented toward the interior of the vehicle or facing out the sides of the vehicle (e.g., the left and/or right sides and/or the front and/or rear sides of the vehicle), facing toward the front of the vehicle, facing toward the rear of the vehicle, and/or rotatable between various orientations.

Apple's patent FIG. 3 below illustrates a schematic perspective view of an example directional acoustic device; FIG. 4 illustrates a schematic perspective view of an example directional component of a directional acoustic device; and  FIG. 5 illustrates a schematic side view of another example directional acoustic device.

Apple's patent FIG. 6 below illustrates a schematic top view of an example of directional audio output by the example directional acoustic device of FIG. 5, implemented in the apparatus of FIG. 1, in accordance with implementations of the subject technology;

Apple's patent FIG. 7 above illustrates an example three-dimensional acoustic power distribution of directional audio output of the example directional acoustic device of FIG. 5 in accordance with implementations of the subject technology.

Apple's patent FIG. 8 above illustrates an example distribution of acoustic power as a function of frequency and azimuth of directional audio output by the example directional acoustic device of FIG. 5 in accordance with implementations of the subject technology.

Apple's two patent applications on this invention are filled with rich details. Review patents applications 20230136545 and 20230133951.

Apple's second patent application 20230133951 covers directional audio for enclosed environments. In one or more implementations, an apparatus may include an enclosed environment, and one or more a dual directional speakers, one or more ringed arrays of speakers, one or more isobaric cross-firing speakers, and/or one or more door-mounted speaker arrays that are operable to direct sound to one or more desired locations within the enclosed environment.

Apple Inventors

• Daniel Boothe: Audio and Acoustics Technology Incubation (came to Apple via Bose)
• Onur Ilkorur: Acoustic Hardware Engineer
• Marty Johnson: Distinguished Engineer /Audio technology development
• Christopher Wilk: Acoustic Simulation Engineer
• Tom-Davy Saux: Audio Technology
• Jason Parker: Product Design Engineer - Special Projects Group
• Andrea Baldioceda: Audio and Acoustics