We’re sure you won’t need the team here at AppleMagazine to tell you there is always speculation about the ‘next big thing’ in the world of the Cupertino company. Still, we are particularly fascinated by the notion that Apple could entrench itself further in the wearables market in the mid-2020s with a set of augmented reality (AR) glasses called “Apple Glass”.
On Tuesday, came a significant development giving us a sense of what such glasses could look like if Apple does eventually throw the covers off this type of product. Specifically, the company was granted a patent titled “Tunable and foveated lens systems”, which raises the possibility of smart glasses or a headset with the ability to adjust its lenses to correct the vision of the wearer.
Such technology, if implemented in an actual device, could answer the question of how people who normally wear glasses in order to see might be able to also use smart glasses. Glasses wearers are already all too familiar with the headaches that trying to put on a virtual reality (VR) headset can bring, if the confined enclosure is not large enough to accommodate their glasses.
By contrast, Apple’s newly granted patent would simply involve the smart glasses or headset hardware itself adjusting its lenses in line with the user’s needs – meaning they would be able to use it without the need to wear their usual prescription glasses at the same time.
The granted patent, published by the US Patent and Trademark Office, serves up the prospect of a lens system that could cater to multiple users with varying vision impairments, such as myopia, hyperopia, presbyopia, astigmatism, higher-order aberrations, and/or other vision defects.
Nor is it exactly the first time Apple has indicated to the world that it is focusing on this technology, four other such patents having been reported on over the last year. We can’t wait to see how it could eventually look “in the flesh”…