Fancy ejecting flash drives from your Mac with a wave of your hand? That’s what Apple has been planning, according to a newly discovered patent application. Is Cupertino cooking up a motion sensing USB key?
The Apple patent application, which dates from January last year, describes a way to unmount a USB key without the need for hitting an onscreen eject button and pausing before yanking it out to avoid wiping your precious photos off it.
With the Apple flash drive, the technology inside would allow for auot-dismounitng either as soon as you grabbed it, or even as an “impending touch” approaches. In other words, it’ll detect you grabbing for it and anticipate being unplugged.
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Of course, the technology described could dangerous on a laptop, with the USB ports so close to your fingers typing on the keyboard on an Apple MacBook Pro, but on an iMac or Mac Pro, it’d be perfect. Will Apple’s USB tech ever see the light of the day? It was invented by Apple’s director of patent development, Brett Alten, so we’ve got our fingers crossed.
It’s a cool idea but what am I going to do with the drawer full of USB drives I already have. I’m guessing these Apple one’s won’t be cheap either. It would be better if the sensor was built into my MacBook!
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