Apple working on no-touch display for hovering fingers: Report

Apple has been granted a patent that would allow an iPhone or iPad to “sense” a user’s finger input when hovering over a display screen, rather than physically touching the surface. The patent has been granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office on February 2. According to a report by Apple Insider, the patent for the technology “details methods by which photodiodes, or other proximity sensing hardware, work in tandem with traditional multi-touch displays to essentially shift the user interaction area beyond the screen. In some ways, the invention is similar in scope to 3D Touch, but measures input in an opposite direction along the z-axis relative to an iPhone’s screen.” Basically, the patent suggests that Apple will be using infrared LEDs and photodiodes, similar to the infrared proximity modules iPhone uses for head detection and, the light which will then be generated by the LED will bounce off a user’s finger and will be captured by the photodiode. With all the new sensors, the system can detect a finger, palm or other object hovering just above a display surface. In this manner, users can “push” virtual buttons, trigger functions without even touching a display. However, it is unlikely that this technology will be embeded into a device anytime soon. [caption id=“attachment_297770” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”]  Image: pdfpiw.uspto.gov[/caption] With the new patent, the new sensors could detect a finger, palm or any other object hovering above a display surface, which in turn would potentially allow users to push virtual buttons or operate other functions without ever touching a display. Looks like Apple is proposing a more intimate solution which will be optimised for use in iPhone, MacBook and other portable devices. The report also pointed out that Apple’s hover-sensing display patent was first filed for in March 2015 and credits Steven P. Hotelling and Christoph H. Krah as its inventors.