Apple wants to make the Apple Watch more useful for the blind

Apple wants to make its Apple Watch more useful for the blind. It’s filed for a patent (number 10,156,904) for “wrist-based tactile time feedback for non-sighted users.”

In the patent filing, Apple notes that, typically, electronic devices such as mobile phones and wearable electronics output time by displaying the time on a display screen. However, the time is usually viewed by looking at a displayed time, which doesn’t help those with vision problems. Apple wants to change this. 

Here’s Apple’s summary of the invention: “Systems and methods for tactile time feedback include detecting a sequence of touch inputs at an electronic device, and in response to a determination that the sequence of touch inputs meets tactile time output criteria, output a tactile output pattern that indicates a time of day.”

Of course, 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.