Future Apple Pencils could be equipped with optical sensors that allow them to interact with a device such as a Mac that lacks a touch surface.
About the patent
This is evidenced by a newly granted Apple patent for “Input Devices With Optical Sensors.” In the patent the tech giant notes that many types of input devices are presently available for performing operations in a computing system, such as buttons or keys, mice, trackballs, joysticks, touch panels, touch screens and the like. Touch-sensitive devices, and touch screens in particular, are quite popular because of their ease and versatility of operation as well as their affordable prices.
Apple notes that styli have become popular input devices for touch-sensitive devices. In particular, use of an active stylus capable of generating stylus stimulation signals that can be sensed by the touch-sensitive device can improve the precision of stylus input.
However, such styli require a touch-sensitive surface in order to generate content, which limits their interaction to devices with touch surfaces such as the iPad. Apple’s patent involves an Apple Pencil with optical sensors that can detect position, orientation, and/or motion.
In some examples, some or all of the characteristics of the input device can be used in processing to generate content, including textual character input and three-dimensional objects. In some examples, the generation of content can use information from one or more additional sensors of the input device and/or from additional devices in combination with the characteristics of the input device based on the optical sensors.
What’s more, the info acquired from the one or more additional sensors can include force applied by the input device, force applied by a stylus tip, inertial measurements, magnetic measurement, and/or computer vision measurements.
Summary of the patent
Here’s Apple’s abstract of the patent: “Optical sensors can be used for content generation using an input device without a touch sensitive surface. In some examples, the optical sensors can be used to detect characteristics of the input device including position, orientation, and/or motion of the input device.
“In some examples, some or all of the characteristics of the input device can be used in processing to generate content, including textual character input and three-dimensional objects. In some examples, the generation of content can use information from one or more additional sensors of the input device and/or from additional devices in combination with the characteristics of the input device based on the optical sensors.”
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