Apple Still Exploring Pressure-Sensitive Touchscreen Devices, Says Reports

By Prarthito

| Published: Friday, April 4, 2014, 13:08 [IST]

Apple is in news almost everyday for a host of reasons that are related to the company's own iPhone and iPad offerings. However, in the last few weeks, the company has been in news primarily for the technological patents dicussing about features that might get ported over to the devices in future. And this week, as it seems, the trend has been maintained.

According to reports, Apple is seriously looking into a certain kind of touch screen technology that has the ability to determine pressure sensitivity by utilizing a combination of capacitive touch and infrared light sensors.

Apple Still Exploring Pressure-Sensitive Touchscreen Devices

The new information has arrived via a new patent application recently published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and brought to light by AppleInsider.

So basically, Apple's new patent has showed how the company is looking to dive into the use of infrared technology in order to determine pressure sensitivity.

And while nothing here has been finalized by the company, and everything has to be taken with a pinch of salt, the new technology, if implemented, could allow a brand new trend of commands with a device interacting with an user depending on the kind of pressure that has been applied on the display.

This certain method is known as Frustrated Total Internal Reflection, or FTIR. And for those who are not really prone to all the scientific terms, FTIR is a light-based option to detect multitouch.

The technology can be made use of by bouncing infrared light off a touch screen to detect any interference from the user's finger. This, when combined with capacitive touch, can actually deduce force.

"After traveling within the cover glass, the emitted IR light hits a receiver that calculates amount of total internal reflection. Depending on whether the light interfaced with ambient air or a user's finger substantially touching the cover glass, the readings will be different," the Apple Insider reports states.

However, don't expect the technology to arrive any time soon as it's still just in its beta stages. But then again, future is always a possibility.