Apple has filed for three more patents regarding its rumored “Apple Glasses,” an augmented reality head-mounted display (HMD). The first involves considerations for users with eye problems such as myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism, or presbyopia.
The tech giant says it can be challenging to ensure that an optical system in a head-mounted device displays computer-generated content satisfactorily and provides an acceptable viewing experience for users with visual defects. Apple has some solutions under consideration.
Patent number 20200225477 is for a “display system with virtual image distance adjustment and corrective lenses.” The goal is for Apple Glasses to direct its computer-generated image towards eye boxes for viewing by a user. The optical system may be a see-through optical system that allows the user to view a real-world object through the optical system.
The optical system may include a removable lens. The removable lens may serve as a custom vision correction lens to correct for a user’s vision defects. The optical system may have a projection bias lens that places computer-generated content at one or more desired virtual image distances and a corresponding compensation bias lens.
Moving on, patent filing number 20200225747 is for “gaze detection user interactions.” It involves not only Apple Glasses, but also Macs, iPads, and Apple TV set-top boxes.
A camera may be used to periodically capture images of a user’s eyes. By processing the images to produce accurate orientation information reflecting the position of the user’s eyes relative to the device, the orientation of the device tracked by the motion sensor can be periodically updated. You would, theoretically, control some user interface elements with your eyes,
Finally, patent filing number 20200225489 is for a “head-mounted device with active optical foveation.” Apple says when high-resolution images are being displayed for a viewer on an HMD, it may be “burdensome” to display images at full resolution across an entire display. Foveation techniques involve displaying only critical portions of an image at full resolution and can help reduce the burdens on a display system.
When it comes to Apple Glasses, such a device will arrive next year or 2022, depending on which rumor you believe. It will be a head-mounted display. Or may have a design like “normal” glasses. Or it may be available in both. The Apple Glasses may or may not have to be tethered to an iPhone to work. Other rumors say that Apple Glasses could have a custom-build Apple chip and a dedicated operating system dubbed “rOS” for “reality operating system.”
