“Apple Inc. is working on touchless gesture control and curved screens for future iPhones, projects that may help the company differentiate its most-important product in an increasingly crowded market, according to people with knowledge of the matter,” Mark Gurman reports for Bloomberg. “The technology likely won’t be ready for consumers for at least two years, if Apple chooses to go forward with it, a person familiar with the work said.”
“The new gesture technology would take into account the proximity of a finger to the screen, the person said,” Gurman reports. “Apple is also developing iPhone displays that curve inward gradually from top to bottom, one of the people familiar with the situation said.”
“A curved iPhone may be as little as two to three years away, the person said. Apple is also working on new screen technology, known as MicroLED, but that’s at least three to five years away, Bloomberg News reported last month,” Gurman reports. [Apple’s new touchless gesture tech] would be based on technology built into the display itself rather than via a motion sensor on the phone’s bezel.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Real, useful touchless gesture control would naturally come from Apple, long a pioneer in input devices and methods.
Get High Sierra working first
I keep hearing about curved screens, but I never hear any reason why they’re actually better. I can accept the logic that on a tv you can get a better view, but that only makes sense in a limited sweet spot so has died a death. Why would a phone with a curved screen possibly be better?
Indeed! However, often a technology can only be evaluated adequately only after it’s developed and tested in the lab.
The way the curved screens that Apple is developing is described it appears to be a way to better ‘fit’ the curvature of your face to be more comfortable when you use the phone. It is also possible that it may reduce damage to the center portion of the display when dropped on its face.
Is there a website that offers Mac daily news instead of iOS and Trump Rumours?
So Apple’s finally interested in following Google into developing touchless gesture tech? Project Soli has been in dev since 2014 and reports are Google is now working with the FCC to use higher bands.
Here’s a nice overview of Project Soli.
http://digitalworldnative.com/googles-soli-uses-a-small-radar-to-detect-touchless-hand-gestures-3122018/
Cook has been slowly following the competition since the day Jobs made the mistake of handing him the reigns.