A Future Apple Pencil may provide a Touch Display and a Wide Array of new Sensors Including a Camera & Touch ID
Today the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that relates to a future version of Apple Pencil being designed with a touch display that could display textual and/or graphical display elements representing selectable virtual buttons or icons, and the touch sensitive surface may allow a user to navigate the content displayed on the display screen.
The display will provide users an early indication system showing what color is currently being used on the pen and when the color is changed from a color pallet the display will mirror the user's choice.
Additionally, the tip of Apple Pencil shown as #190 below in patent FIGS. 2 and 6 may become more sophisticated with new sensors such as contact sensors, capacitive sensors, touch sensors, cameras and/or an RGB optical sensor, piezoelectric sensors, pressure sensors, photodiodes, and/ others.
According to other embodiments, Apple Pencil may include other components including, for example, orientation detectors, gyroscopes, accelerometers, biometric readers, displays, sensors, switches (e.g., dome switches), buttons, speakers, microphones, cameras, voice coils, haptic feedback devices and more.
Further, Apple notes that the flat top-end of Apple Pencil could also advance and include other sensors that could include a tactile sensor, such as a dial, a button, a switch, a touchpad, a touchscreen, and/or a twist mechanism that produces incremental clicks when moving between various positions.
Apple's patent application 20190324561 that was published today by the U.S. Patent Office was filed back in Q3 2018 with some work carrying over from Q2 2018. Considering that this is a patent application, the timing of such a product to market is unknown at this time.
Two of Apple's Inventors
Johnny (Hyungryul) Choi: Engineering Manager: investigates new display and optical technologies for future Apple products
Di HU: Optical Engineer
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