Apple has filed patents for three new features that may end up in future iterations of the iPhone. Haptic feedback, fingerprint scanning and an RFID reader maybe coming to iPhone 4.0.
Apple is not a company to rest on its laurels. With the iPhone 3GS flying off the shelves, Steve Jobs and co. are still R&Ding wacky new features to put up for consideration for future versions of the iPhone, including these three patents filed recently.
Haptic feedback could embed “piezoelectronic actuators” under the touchscreen that can change the texture of the screen’s surface, allowing you to feel the shape of buttons, or receive little pushes or vibrations back from the phone when you ‘move’ something on screen. This would be a bit like the BlackBerry Storm only, y’know, not awful.
Fingerprint scanning would rather fly in the face of the 3GS’ Oleophobic, fingerprint-repelling case but could enable a security authentication method that would be foolproof unless someone figured out how to duplicate your fingerprints. Which, sadly, is not impossible. Still, neat trick, and it would discourage casual fiddlers from messing with your iPhone while still being more convenient than a PIN. Where Apple take Fingerprint recognition to a different level, however, is by allowing the phone to tell which finger you are using to touch the screen with This will greatly expand the number of available touch gestures and really annoy those who have figured a way around the existing patent for multitouch input. Yes, Palm, we are looking at you,
RFID reading would enable the iPhone to detect embedded RFID chips (like the one in your passport, or in a clothes store security tag). The Apple patent places the scanner underneath the iPhone screen, which we can’t really see the point of, but – hey – we aren’t Apple.
TBC | £tbc | Apple (via BoyGenius)
