Companies like Apple are constantly applying for patents, to secure research and developments. Interesting info sometimes comes out of that. However, such patent applications never guarantee the future, but they do provide a glimpse into the kitchen. You see what those companies are thinking or even working on behind the scenes.
Apple now appears to be working on improving water and pressure resistance for the iPhone. The patent states that the company is looking for a way for sensors on the device to continue working when there is such resistance. Will the iPhone get an addition in the form of a pressure gauge in the future?
Will Apple add pressure gauge to iPhone?
It’s not a very crazy idea. We take our smartphones everywhere we go. In the car, on a plane, on a boat or on a mountain. They have to deal with all kinds of resistance, which sometimes causes things to break down. A pressure gauge can warn you when something is about to go wrong, for example.
The streaming service on your iPhone! (Image: EPA/HAYOUNG JEON)
Apple wants to prevent the iPhone from being weighed down by all kinds of high or low temperatures or areas of high or low pressure, is one conclusion you can draw from this patent. You can achieve waterproofing by removing open ports. The company did that in 2016, after which many companies quickly followed suit.
Solutions create new problems
However, such solutions create new problems. Not everyone is willing to part with certain ports or buttons. In addition, a completely closed device can become much hotter, because it cannot dissipate its heat. These are problems that Apple is trying to address now, for the future.
The solutions Apple has in mind are described in an epistle of over seven thousand words. In it, the company names, among other things, a way for water to enter and leave the device. But much attention is also paid to how the iPhone can become a pressure transducer, for example by adding a closed cavity that measures ambient pressure. Real details about its (daily) use are unfortunately not in the patent.
