Apple has very ambitious plans for its next generation of devices, and among these, an interesting novelty was spotted by the MacRumors portal, informing that recently, Apple requested two new patents to insert its next releases. According to the source, the novelty may arrive on iPhones and other company devices, however, the initial focus is on the Apple Watch smart watch.
From what has been spotted, Apple intends to somehow add the Touch ID feature to the smartwatch, as well as a camera that will be hidden under the Apple Watch screen. Patents for both technologies were granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office, and their names alone explain their proper functions.
touch ID
This patent appears under the name "Electronic Device with Sealed Button Biometric Sensor System". Apple's patent application explains how to integrate Touch ID into the Apple Watch's side buttons and what practical purposes it can achieve.
Touch ID allows user identification, device unlocking and app purchase authorization, for example. The reason to integrate this function into the Apple Watch explains a lot, since today the Apple Watch still depends on the use of passwords, which is no longer the best security and privacy option nowadays. The arrival of Touch ID on Apple Watch allows Apple to ensure that users have greater security when using the watch for simpler things and even making transactions via Apple Pay.
How to take a screenshot on Apple WatchCamera under the screen
The second patent, and more curious than that of Touch ID, arrived with the name "Electronic Equipment with Two-Level Display". For a watch, this is a very peculiar novelty, and that's why we believe that this feature will also reach other company devices, such as future iPhones, for example.
The feature description talks about layering a display screen to include a camera and flash. The camera and flash are only visible from the outside only when they are activated, being hidden most of the time.
At first, the technology could provide a two-level screen, which could have an inner layer with a matrix of pixels to display images, plus a second outer layer formed by a light modulator, which has a matrix of cells. Each of these cells can be placed in either a transparent mode or a light blocking mode, and as a result, will allow the second layer to be invisible.
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When the feature has been turned on, then the control circuitry on the Apple Watch will let the shutter show in a transparent mode to allow light from the flash or light captured by the camera to pass through.
It is still difficult to understand how exactly this technology would work in practice on a relatively small device like the Apple Watch, however, we can say that this is a revolutionary novelty and could shake the smartwatch market in the near future.
