Apple releases patents for bone-conducting EarPods and waterproofing iPhones

Two of Apple’s latest patents have come to light thanks to AppleInsider. Bone-conducting EarPods are one of them. These EarPods use technology which will measure the vibrations in your skull. Measuring these vibrations will help cancel out background noise and improve your overall user experience when listening to music or having a voice conversation. A built-in accelerometer helps the device distinguish between ambient noise and the sound of someone’s speech. This could be an important feature in order to use Siri without any issues of ambient noise. The patent (which can be found here) says that “an earphone device outfitted with accelerometers capable of detecting vocal chord vibrations that propagate through a user’s skull. With the help of an onboard microphone, the system measures output signals and parses out non-vocal noise to distinguish voiced speech from ambient vibrations.” The report goes on to explain that the accelerometer-assisted voice activity detector is accompanied by a microphone array. The array’s main job is to carefully and constantly monitor acoustic signals for a user’s voice. The second patent hints at waterproofing the next iPhone. A specialised mesh ‘umbrella’ that would be found sitting directly above an acoustic port, such as a speaker, would help in directing liquid away from the phone. The patent also mentions a hydrophobic coating what will help draw the liquid out. This coating is meant to act as a line of defense against any unwanted liquids that might get into your phone. Despite the news of these two patents surfacing, it’s still unclear as to whether Apple will actually incorporate either into the next iPhone.