Apple’s most recent screen successes have centered around the Retina display. But a new patent suggests that Apple has been working on displays that can react to their surroundings to dynamically improve the viewing experience.
According to Patently Apple, the company has filed a patent for a mobile display that uses the sensors aboard devices like the iPhone and iPad to understand the world around it. The patent suggests that the “physical and lighting properties of the user’s environment” could be used to provide “a more interesting and visually appealing” display.
The patent goes on to suggest that devices could monitor factors like ambient light, as well as the position of the user’s eyes, to generate dynamic shadows on their screens. Those shadows could be used to either make the entire display more clear, or even to spotlight what the users is looking at or add perspective to images. The patent also makes it clear that this could be implemented on desktop and laptop displays, too.
It sounds like the kind of thing that anyone who has ever used a laptop or iPad outside would jump at. Anti-glare covers exist, sure, but in my experience they don’t really work. This, on the other hand, could mean I spend a lot more time working from my garden. [FPO via Patently Apple; Image: Ed Yourdon]
Ozoneocean
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 12:23 AMWell there’s already the “auto brightness” featured on devices and many programs too that adjusts for environment pretty well, I wonder if this patent doesn’t trample on those? Although the shadow things sounds a little new… but then rather than being a innovation it’s really just a logical extension of that feature.
Tim
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 1:46 AMto me it just sounds like they’re patenting an existing feature, but dressing it up in a fancy way so they can come around later and bitch about how everyone is trampling on their patents with their fancy auto brightness features
Dave
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 7:26 AMmy old HP nw9440 does all that…
so bored of this sort of rubish. what next? screen unlock that my alieanware had 4 years ago?
Marko
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 6:55 PMYou actually bought an Alienware laptop. I lol’d.
Sean
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 8:18 PMYou laugh out louded?
MotorMouth
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 10:01 AMOf course, Apple could also admit that their glossy displays are just useless and change to matte displays like everyone else. I made the mistake of buying a laptop with a gloss screen, my first personal laptop, and it was bloody awful. Yes, you get the impression of better contrast but the cons far outweigh the pros.
If you want to create a “dynamic shadow”, just position your hand in the appropriate place. I’m sure you and I can do that more effectively than a computer.
Isaac Shepherd
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 3:51 PMSo you think your hand can make a dynmic shadow that only appears on a certain object and track that in real time as it moves across a screen or gets smaller and larger without spilling onto the surroundings? Really now?
I do agree that glossy screens are an awful idea on laptops though.
Franz
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 4:48 PMThis is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.