Apple already controls the tablet market, but this feature will only make it more difficult for competitors to steal away a slice of the pie
On Thursday, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office published a new patent application from Apple that shows the company could be planning on adding mini-projection devices to a coming iteration of its iPhone line and/or developing a projection add-on for MacBooks and other Apple portable devices. "Today's incredibly detailed patent application reveals how they're working on pico-like projectors for iOS devices and how these projectors will work with a shared workspace in presentations," according to Patently Apple, a blog that closely follows all Apple patents and breaks them down, piece by piece, in detailed articles. "Apple's patent even details how they'll introduce advanced gesturing that will be able to interpret shadow and silhouette gesturing associated with presentations in a darkened environment."
Now, Apple controls a huge number of patents and trademarks, far more than it can possibly work into its devices, no matter how many of them there seem to be. iPhones and iPads and iPods, oh my. But integrating projection into the iOS system (one that could soon replace the traditional Mac OS on all of Apple's devices, regardless of size) is something that Apple has long hinted at.