A well-recognized HomePod, however with a mocked-up show throughout the cloth
Future HomePods, iPhone circumstances, Apple Watch bands and extra might show info proper on their acquainted cloth overlaying, if the most recent of very many Apple patent functions is something to go by.
If a HomePod with a display screen is essentially the most generally anticipated new dwelling machine that Apple might make, it is also absolutely the best. Apple makes screens, Apple makes HomePods, so irrespective of how good it’s, a HomePod TV just isn’t going to be earthshaking.
But it surely’s additionally, fairly undoubtedly, not the one avenue Apple is exploring. There is a newly-revealed patent software known as “Fabric-Covered Electronic Device With Light-Emitting Components,” as an example.
And it is only one occasion. Whereas this new patent software has a lot to say about turning the material round a HomePod into a lightweight supply, what’s actually secret is that it is just the most recent of very many comparable concepts.
Some concern utilizing the material as a touch-sensitive button, in order that the HomePod’s distinctive mesh may very well be extra interactive. Even that one, although, consists of point out of a technique to make the material gentle 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 a bit point out of lights, it was all-in on illuminated cloth.
Extra particularly, it was about not simply illuminating a couple of 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 software, Apple discusses how cloth might block gentle 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 technique to flip overlapping strands of material into a real display screen. As a substitute, it is seemingly sure that Apple thinks it is aware of easy methods to use light-emitting cloth with such precision that it will possibly type pictures on the HomePod cowl.
On this newest patent software, 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 machine it will possibly.
“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 parts is an extra 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 material like a coloration alert. These gentle elements might be organized to convey info.
Apple’s stream of patents and patent functions on this space do present that the corporate is placing numerous effort behind the thought — and constantly, too. Up to now the one particulars come from patents that think about reaching a characteristic somewhat than exhibiting what it may very well be used for.
Do not anticipate to look at Apple TV+ on a cloth display screen, however standing indications like pause ought to be potential
So we do not know what Apple thinks we’ll wish to see displayed on gadgets with such cloth round them. However you may think about in a room filled 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 might 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 doubtless, that nothing obvious will come of it and as an alternative the expertise 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 similar concept, it’s a certainty that Apple is pursuing it totally. And, most likely has one thing particular in thoughts.