“It was about a year ago when we first learned of Apple’s initial work on smart bezels that could one day apply to future versions of the iPad and/or other devices,” Jack Purcher reports for Patently Apple.
“As is the case with most cyclical research, ideas have a natural ebb and flow to them. In today’s report you’ll learn a little more about the smart bezel’s advancements via hovering technology and about a new idea to make iOS displays a little more touch sensitive – if that’s even possible,” Purcher reports. “The good news is that Apple has taken some of the initial technology and thinking that was behind their smart bezel project and first applied it to other devices such as the Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad. So now that we know that touch technology can go beyond mere displays, the idea of it applying to a future iPad bezel isn’t as farfetched as it may have been just a year ago. Such is the nature of progress.”
Purcher reports, “In this particular patent [application], Apple sets out to improve capacitive touch and hover sensing. A capacitive sensor array could be driven with electrical signals, such as alternating current (AC) signals, to generate electric fields that extend outward from the sensor array through a touch surface to detect a touch on the touch surface or an object hovering over the touch surface of a touch screen device, for example.”
More info and Apple’s patent application illustrations in the full article here.