With Winter fast approaching, Patently Apple is reporting on a recently filed patent from the Cupertino-based company which seems to suggest Apple may be working on iPhone-compatible gloves. If you’ve ever tried to operate your iPhone with normal, woolen gloves, you’ll likely know how much FAIL is involved.
The patent describes a new type of capacitive touchscreen, able to detect inputs from materials such as plastic and cloth.
“The new touch panel is still a projection design, but could be operated even while wearing gloves. Users could select icons with the tip of a fingernail, input handwriting with a plastic pen, and enjoy a wide range of other input methods. In short, it overcomes the disadvantages that the technology had suffered from in comparison to resistive films, making possible multi-touch operation with both insulators and fingers.”
We highly doubt Apple are working on a set of their own gloves, specifically for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, but … this patent could suggest the company is further investigating new touchscreens for it’s mobile devices.
[Patently Apple via 9to5Mac]
[New on @RFly!] Apple Patents: The iPhone Glove http://dlvr.it/8GYVP
Apple Patents: The iPhone Glove http://dlvr.it/8GYVN [New on RFly!]
Apple Patents: The iPhone Glove http://dlvr.it/8GYVQ
Apple Patents: The iPhone Glove http://rfly.co/aqqWcW
Apple Patents: The iPhone Glove http://rfly.co/aqqWcW
Apple Patents: The iPhone Glove http://dlvr.it/8GYVR
Apple Patents: The iPhone Glove http://dlvr.it/8GYVT
I think you got the wrong end of the stick here, its not about making a glove that works with the iPhone, its about making a capacitive touch screen that works with gloves.
Apple Patents: The iPhone Glove http://bit.ly/cWRLii •(via @razorianfly
I agree with Ryan, especially since things like TavoGloves already exist (http://www.tavoproducts.com/)
The link goes to patently apple as it should, but you have link tagged 9 to 5 Mac. That's a silly oversight. ;-)
Thanks Joe! – The error has now been fixed. It appears I missed a character out of the 'target' part of one of the source links, causing the page to display only one of the two sources links we had published the article with. I hate it when that happens.
Apple Patents: The iPhone Glove | RazorianFly – http://bit.ly/afn71z via @razorianfly
I’ve already seen them:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150553452204&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT