Thursday, October 3, 2013

Apple investigating advanced velocity-sensitive touch input methods

AppleInsider reports new Apple's patent application they have spotted:
Apple's touchscreens can measure not only where you tap, but also how hard you tap — and that velocity sensing functionality may become even more advanced in the future, a new patent application reveals. The filing, entitled "System and Method for Enhancing Touch Input," describes a processing algorithm that would estimate the velocity of a touch input. The sensors within an iOS device or otherwise allow the system to determine velocity, even though the screen may not be pressure sensitive.
The patent abstract provides more technical detail:
Disclosed herein are systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable storage media for processing user input. A system configured to practice the method first receives, via a touch screen of a computing device, input from a user. Then the system fetches data associated with the input from at least two sensors other than the touch screen and adjusts an input processing algorithm based on the input and the data to yield an adjusted input processing algorithm. Then the system can process the input according the adjusted input processing algorithm. The adjusted input processing algorithm can estimate a velocity of the input and/or filter out invalid inputs. The other sensors besides the touch screen can be an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a microphone, a Hall Effect sensor, a compass, an ambient light sensor, a proximity sensor, a camera, and/or a positioning system. The data can relate to the input based on a temporal relationship.

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