Apple’s latest iPad innovation could allow you to ‘feel’ objects displayed on the screen, thanks to newly-revealed Apple Pencil technologies.
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According to a patent spotted by PatentlyApple, Apple has been developing an updated version of the Apple Pencil with sophisticated haptic feedback support. Haptic feedback allows the pencil to make small movements or vibrations that the user can feel while holding it, simulating the sensation of touch.
The new patent describes several example use cases including simulating:
- The physical sensation of moving a paintbrush across a canvas.
- The difference in feel between ‘wet’ and ‘dry’ brushes.
- The sensation of moving the brush over a rough surface such as wood.
- The effect of a pencil rubbing against an edge of a piece of paper.
Additionally, the pencil may contain a small speaker to provide sound effects emanating from the pencil itself.
Physical feedback of this kind is particularly useful in applications where the user might benefit from feeling texture or resistance when interacting with objects on screen and would bring a new layer of subtlety and immediacy to creative and photo editing apps.
For this reason haptic feedback, along with Apple’s pencil-based color-sensing, revealed previously, has the potential to put the iPad ever further ahead of any competition from Android tablets. This is particularly true for professional creatives for whom the iPad is already the only viable tablet platform.
You can read the full text of the patent on the USPTO site.
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