Apple has filed 14 new patent applications, which
were published by the US Patent and Trademark Office on Thursday. The
patents include an advanced new haptics system, a new battery design, a
new camera feature, and some modifications to the Mac mini and
high-speed cables.
Just before the new iPad was announced, it was reported
that Apple could be implementing a new haptic texture display in the
tablet, which would create a 'textured feedback' by means of a small
electrical stimulus. The new iPad emerged with no such display, however,
a new patent filed by Apple has revealed a more advanced multi-tiered
haptics system, reports Patently Apple.
The
system would allow an iPad, iPhone or iPod touch's display to deform to
make a button, an arrow or a map pop out of the screen to give it
three-dimensional depth.
The latest patent shows
an invention that uses layered haptic controls. Patently Apple says:
"Haptic systems may be used for actuation such as vibration, shape
change (e.g., contouring a flat surface), or other suitable actuations
or combination of actuation which may provide tactile feedback to a
user.
Patently Apple states that in Apple's new
invention: "Stacked arrays may be used to create a contoured screen
surface such as, for example, contour maps, shaped buttons, moving
contours or shapes, or other surfaces with multi-scale features."
The
tiered haptic display could also be pressure sensitive, a significantly
beneficial feature for drawing and painting apps, for example.
Apple's new high speed cable, as shown in a patent filing published yesterday,
would be capable of high-speed data transmission with low insertion
loss, and would be flexible so that they can be bent and twisted without
getting damaged, reports Patently Apple. The report suggests that the
patent could be an indication that the next iPhone will have a round
dock connector.
A patent filed by Apple relating
to iOS devices' camera covers the method of deciding the exposure of
images. Apple wants to add a "blowout prevention" stage for image
processing, to stop overexposure producing pure white pixels in a
photograph, or underexposure producing black pixels.
A
fourth patent filed by Apple covers a battery design with multiple
thicknesses, which could enable iPhones or iPads to be thinner. Last
month, we reported
that the next iPhone could be 1.4mm thinner than the iPhone 4S, by
using a thinner battery, metal back and in-cell technology in the
device.
Apple also updated a patent relating to the Mac mini, filed a patent for high-speed memory sockets and interposers and more.
