Of all the smartphone manufacturers, Apple is undoubtedly the one that produces the most patents; At least they are being talked about more. The company never seems to lack imagination when it comes to bringing new innovations to its devices. Keyless keyboard, self-healing screen, you’ve got something to sink your teeth into imagining the future of the brand in Cupertino.
But Apple doesn’t always revolutionize its formula in its patents. Sometimes it recycles old ideas. What our colleagues recently discoveredApple Insider, It is directly inspired by an old MacBook innovation that could not meet its audience at that time: Touch Bar. Today Apple is considering reviving the latter, but this time on the iPhone.
Apple dreams of a second screen on the edge of the iPhone
This new generation Touch Bar would thus be placed on the edge of the iPhone. According to the patent, their main function will be to provide new ways to interact with an application. In this sense, it aims to replace physical buttons like Apple did on the iPhone 15. The company takes it as an example of a music application that can be controlled by playback, volume or track selection via this secondary screen.
But as Apple points out, this display can adapt to context. For example, it allows you to browse a photo gallery or even launch an application. Additionally, Apple clearly explains that this display will replace physical buttons, leaving the user with the option to configure the display as they see fit. In other words, it’s clear that there’s a new version of the Touch Bar, this time for iPhones.
We also think that this screen will include certain functions of Dynamic Island, which appeared on the iPhone 14. Thus, it will be able to display various information such as the weather or the status of the delivery. As always, we will have to wait a bit to have more details about this. Note that this is just a patent and in no way forces Apple to carry this innovation to its subsequent iPhones.
