WASHINGTON, March 5 (RIA Novosti) - Most smartphones on the market today are controlled with a tap or a swipe. But in the future your phone could be controlled by a squeeze if a patent granted Tuesday to US tech giant Apple is any indication of the company’s future plans in mobile and electronic devices.
“A pressure-sensitive phone could -- at the very least -- cut down on the number of buttons and icons we tap just to perform simple everyday tasks,” said Lance Whitney in a blog post for the tech website CNET.
The patent known as "sensing capacitance changes of a housing of an electronic device," was one of 39 newly granted Apple patents approved Tuesday by the US Patent and Trademark Office.
The invention is designed to manage different phone functions depending on how much pressure is applied when users touch or squeeze the device’s casing. The patent uses a mobile phone as an example, but could also be applied across an array of Apple products.
For example with the MacBook, the patent could lead to a non-physical keyboard that is only visible, “when the user waves his hand over the housing to cause the keys to appear," the patent described.
Apple credits four inventors as the creators of the patent which was originally filed in 2009.
“Like many patents, this one may not ever see the light of day,” Whitney said, but the promise of something new and futuristic from Apple is enough for tech enthusiasts to pay close attention to what might be on the horizon for Apple.
