The company patents new tech for future iPhones

Nov 28, 2015 10:03 GMT  ·  By

Gloves that can be used with touchscreens are nothing out of this world right now. Some devices even come with special tech that allows you to use them with any gloves, and Apple seems to become more interested in this kind of feature.

The company has recently patented a new technology that it calls “Glove Touch Detection,” whose purpose is pretty much self-explanatory: use an iPhone even if you're wearing gloves, which clearly comes in very handy during the winter.

The first model to get this tech could be the upcoming iPhone 7, but for the moment, there's still no word from Apple on such a plan.

Patently Apple has, however, discovered the patent application that describes the technology:

“In some examples, in addition to using a signal density make threshold to identify an input patch as touching the surface, a signal density stability threshold can be used to identify the input patch as touching the surface. In [other] examples, a weighted average of peak signal density contributions from recent identified touches can be computed to dynamically adjust the make threshold for new input patches.”

Right now, gloves that support touchscreens don't cost more than a few dollars, but Apple's technology would make it possible to use your iPhone with absolutely all kinds of gloves. Hopefully, the company will make this available by the time the next winter arrives, so fingers crossed for this one.