With the global community looking for green solutions, Apple have filed patents that helps their existing iOS technology work with two different styluses.
According to recently filed Apple patents and electronista.com, Apple intends on releasing styluses that work with their iOS devices, such as their hugely successful iPad series.
Renowned for their incredibly accurate and touch sensitive screens, Apple products (including the iPhone and iPad series) employ capacitive touch screens. Capacitive technology works by using a layer of capacitive material that holds an electrical charge, which changes state when pressed by a finger at the point of contact.
This can happen because the human nervous system is characterised by an electrical design, which helps in recognising touch gestures.
This technology has been great in creating a more immersive experience between the mechanical iOS system and the organic man, but the lack of electrical charge in an inanimate object, such as a stylus, means that there are some applications users have to live without.
The patent titled Stylus for Touch Sensitive Devices details a stylus with a conductive tip that will work with capacitive devices. For better performance it will be heated, have a rechargeable battery, and possibly dock into the device to be charged.
Heating the stylus would also help reduce aging and a loss in signal quality, and according to Apple’s engineer Douglas Weber, three methodologies can be used to heat the device, including a fluid base element, a heat sink that transfers heat from the user’s hand to the stylus or a battery powered element.
The second device mentioned, dubbed a Communicating Stylus doesn’t actually need to be pressed against the device. With an inbuilt accelerometer, a tip for writing and a wireless transmitter and receiver, the device will send a digitised copy to a user’s Apple product.
This could be helpful in numerous applications like with people writing on a white board and then having a digital copy wirelessly transmitted to their device, such as a teacher or businessman. Or perhaps even better, having multiple digitised copies stored in onlookers products, making it ideal for large numbered universities and businesses.
With the viral green bug global, these efforts could put apple in a position that bridges the environmentally unfriendly nature of the handwritten paper, with the ecologically advantageous nature of the digital.
