Let the Apple Car rumors roll on. Apple has been granted a patent (number 10,969,530) for “lighting systems” for vehicles.
In the patent data, the tech giant says that existing lighting systems in cars are generally visible to a user even when the lighting system is unilluminated. However, the “visible presence of a lighting system in a vehicle may be aesthetically appealing or may prevent other objects from being visible through the lighting system.” Apple doesn’t want this to be the case if it ever actually introduces its own vehicle.
Here’s the summary of the patent: “A lighting system may be integrated into a window, a skylight, an exterior light such as a headlight, a tail light, or a high center-mounted stop light, or other exterior or interior portions of a system such as a vehicle. The light guide may be embedded in an adhesive layer in a vehicle structure. The light guide may be index-matched to the adhesive layer so that unilluminated portions of the light guide are indistinguishable from the vehicle structure.
“The light guide may be formed from optical fibers. The optical fibers may include a light-scattering optical fiber that scatters light out of the vehicle structure. The light-scattering optical fiber may be fused to a non-scattering optical fiber that guides light from a light source to the light-scattering optical fiber.”
