Apple has been granted a second patent (number 9,520062; the first one was 20160019787) for a “method for locating a vehicle.” The invention allows you to located your car in a parking garage or other parking structure via your iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch.
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Communications between the iOS device, parking system and vehicle can be based on one or more wireless connections, such as Bluetooth and/or Bluetooth LE connections. The iDevice can request and receive location information from a set of one or more wireless sensors situated within the parking structure. Based on the received information, the iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch can determine a parking location for the vehicle.
Apple doesn’t want you to call the Apple Pencil a “stylus,” but Apple has been issued a patent (number 9,516,361) for an “active stylus.” It obviously involves the input device for use with the iPad Pro.
In the patent filing, Apple notes that when a stylus has been used as an input device in a capacitive touch system, it’s traditionally been finger-like in nature.
A conventional stylus is often simply a conductive rod with a finger-sized rounded tip large enough to disrupt the electric field lines between the drive and sense electrodes of a capacitive touch sensor panel. As such, conventional styluses are passive input devices in that they are incapable of actively transmitting stimulus signals or sensing a touch-induced capacitance change in a capacitive touch sensor panel.
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Apple’s invention can either act as a drive electrode to create an electric field between the drive electrode and the sense lines of a mutual capacitive touch sensor panel, or as a sense electrode for sensing capacitively coupled signals from one or more stimulated drive rows and columns of the touch sensor panel or both.
Apple files for — and is granted — lots of patents by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Many are for inventions that never see the light of day. However, you never can tell which ones will materialize in a real product.
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