A well-known HomePod, however with a mocked-up show inside the cloth
Future HomePods, iPhone instances, Apple Watch bands and extra may show info proper on their acquainted cloth protecting, if the newest of very many Apple patent functions is something to go by.
If a HomePod with a display is probably the most generally anticipated new house gadget that Apple might make, it is also absolutely the best. Apple makes screens, Apple makes HomePods, so regardless of how good it’s, a HomePod TV is just not going to be earthshaking.
However it’s additionally, fairly positively, not the one avenue Apple is exploring. There is a newly-revealed patent utility known as “Fabric-Covered Electronic Device With Light-Emitting Components,” as an illustration.
And it is only one occasion. Whereas this new patent utility has loads to say about turning the material round a HomePod into a lightweight supply, what’s actually secret’s that it is just the newest of very many comparable concepts.
Some concern utilizing the material as a touch-sensitive button, in order that the HomePod’s distinctive mesh could possibly be extra interactive. Even that one, although, contains point out of a strategy to make the material mild up round that button.
That was in 2021, the place in March 2020, Apple utilized for a patent for the same “fabric-covered electronic device with touch sensor.” In March 2021, Apple went the opposite manner and as an alternative of being about contact with just a little point out of lights, it was all-in on illuminated cloth.
Extra particularly, it was about not simply illuminating just a few strands of the material. It was about embedding a show inside a cloth cowl.
Element from the patent exhibiting a HomePod with each enter controls and a few output within the cloth mesh
At factors, together with on this newest patent utility, Apple discusses how cloth may block mild coming from a tool’s chassis. A part of its proposed options contain what seems to be a easy case of how “reflective coatings… may be applied to make [plastic strands] reflective.”
However then strands “may include optical fibers (e.g., lossy optical fibers with surface roughening or other features that allow the strands to guide light while emitting portion of the guided light outwardly).” Such strands “can be provided with light from light sources such as light-emitting diodes to display information (e.g., desired patterns of light).”
It is unlikely that Apple thinks it has a strategy to flip overlapping strands of cloth into a real display. As a substitute, it is seemingly sure that Apple thinks it is aware of tips on how to use light-emitting cloth with such precision that it could kind photos on the HomePod cowl.
On this newest patent utility, Apple talks about the entire package deal of wrapping cloth round a chassis. And it is particularly the chassis of a HomePod that it is discussing, although later it does the patent ritual of naming each potential gadget it could.
“An electronic device such as a voice-controlled speaker device may have a cylindrical shape,” it says. “The electronic device may include a housing, a speaker in the housing configured to emit sound, and a display in the housing.”
“The display may include a substrate, light-emitting components mounted on the substrate,” it continues, “an opaque support structure mounted on the substrate, a diffuser that is mounted to the opaque support structure and that overlaps the light-emitting components, a display cover layer that overlaps the diffuser, and foam that is interposed between the opaque support structure and the display cover layer.”
Possibly extra revealing than the specifics of the completely different components is an additional remark about the usage of all of this. “The light-emitting components may be arranged in groups that have the same layout and orientations that vary as a function of angular position relative to the center of the display.”
In different phrases, this isn’t about flashing one strand of cloth like a colour alert. These mild elements could be organized to convey info.
Apple’s stream of patents and patent functions on this space do present that the corporate is placing a whole lot of effort behind the thought — and constantly, too. To this point the one particulars come from patents that consider reaching a characteristic moderately than exhibiting what it could possibly be used for.
Do not count on to observe Apple TV+ on a cloth display, however standing indications like pause must be potential
So we do not know what Apple thinks we are going to need to see displayed on units with such cloth round them. However you may think about in a room stuffed with HomePods, the one reacting to your voice having some indication on its floor that it is listening.
Or in case you make a gesture to mute all music round you, maybe a HomePod may show the icon of a silenced speaker, or a pause button.
There’s additionally the chance — at all times an element with patent and patent functions — that nothing will ever come of the thought. Or maybe extra seemingly, that nothing obvious will come of it and as an alternative the know-how turns into an invisible a part of one thing else.
Even when a patent is granted, it is no certainty that Apple will launch a product primarily based on it.
Nonetheless, when there are an ever-increasing variety of patent functions across the identical concept, it’s a certainty that Apple is pursuing it totally. And, in all probability has one thing particular in thoughts.