Apple has filed for a U.S. patent (number 20210042010) for a “3D document editing system” that would work with the widely-expected smart AR glasses (“Apple Glasses”) and a Smart Keyboard or iPad which would allow for manipulation of virtual apps including word processing, games, entertainment, and more.
Dennis Sellers for Apple World Today:
Conventional VR, AR, and MR systems may allow content consumers to view and interact with content in a 3D environment. They may provide tools and applications that allow VR content creators to create and edit 3D objects, and may provide a text generation and editing system with a conventional 2D GUI that allows content creators to generate text content that can be attached to 3D objects.
However, Apple says these conventional VR systems typically don’t provide text generation and editing systems with GUIs that allow content creators to generate and edit text with 3D effects in a VR 3D environment. The tech giant’s solution is Apple Glasses used in conjunction with a keyboard or iPad.
Here’s the summary of the patent filing: “A 3D document editing system and graphical user interface (GUI) that includes a virtual reality and/or augmented reality device and an input device (e.g., keyboard) that implements sensing technology for detecting gestures by a user. Using the system, portions of a document can be placed at or moved to various Z-depths in a 3D virtual space provided by the VR device to provide 3D effects in the document. The sensing technology may allow the user to make gestures while entering text via a keypad, thus allowing the user to specify 3D effects in the document while typing…”
MacDailyNews Take: With the lightweight and, presumably, stylish “Apple Glasses” expected to have the iPhone do the heavy-lifting (processing) during normal application, any device capable of paring with Apple’s AR smartglasses could conceivably handle those chores; certainly an iPad and even a “Smart Keyboard for Apple Glasses” which could contain the “brains” (Apple A16?) required by the smart glasses. One would assume, however, that the Apple Glasses user would have his iPhone nearby anyway, so the “Smart Keyboard” (with trackpad) could be rather “dumb” (and more affordable) as the glasses could simply continue to use the connected iPhone for processing.