It’s the patent applications that sometimes show when something really interesting is around the corner.
Apple may be planning a version of the Apple Pencil that features a real-world equivalent of the eye-dropped/sample tool found in image applications. Per an Apple patent application in 2019, Apple created a document concerning an Apple Pencil that could include “an on-board display” that showed different colors. In that case, the idea was that a user would see what color pen or brush stroke was about to be applied.
In 2023, the company then applied for a patent that could function as an extension of this. According to the proposals in “Electronic Device With Optical Sensor For Sampling Surfaces,” the Pencil tip could sense colors.
The patent, which was recently granted, discusses changing or selecting colors, albeit more specifically:
“The color sensor may be used to sample the color of the surface of an external object,” says Apple. So this is not solely about tapping the Pencil against, say, an image on an iPad screen, it could be touching the tip against real-world objects.
The patent also describes sensors in an Apple Pencil tip, wherein “the color sensor may have a color sensing light detector having a plurality of photodetectors each of which measures light for a different respective color channel. The color sensor may also have a light emitter… [and the] light spectrum may be adjusted during color sensing measurements using information such as ambient light color measurements.”
The application goes on to describe how “texture measurements and/or other measurements on the appearance of the object may also be made. Texture may be measured using light that strikes the surface of the external object at glancing angles.”
The majority of the 12,000-word patent application concentrates on defining the device that samples — a “cylindrical housing… [or] pencil-shaped” — and how the sampled data is then used.
While this is just a patent that has been granted and not necessarily proof as to the offerings a next-gen Apple Pencil might entail, it’s an interesting idea.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.
Via AppleInsider and uspto.gov