Does an iPhone, Mac, or Apple Watch made entirely of glass seem inconceivable to you? Apple is thinking about it very seriously and already knows what form these devices would take.
Play any science fiction movie, or even an episode of Black Mirror. In the vast majority of cases, they'll share one thing in common. Not in terms of the storyline, but in terms of the accessories used by the characters: transparent screens are the norm. Smartphones, touchscreens... They are now just rectangles of glass on which we can interact in all directions. A fun idea that some manufacturers are seriously considering.
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Apple is one of them. It's not new, in fact; the brand with the bitten apple was already imagining an iPhone made entirely of glass a few years ago. Today, it's going further by filing a patent presenting its main products in a new transparent form. The Apple Watch smartwatch and even the Mac computer benefit from this original treatment. Let's see what it could look like.
A glass iPhone, a Mac, and an Apple Watch: this is how Apple imagines its devices of the future
Let's first recall the operation imagined for the glass iPhone, visible below. Its basic principle is to be able to display something regardless of the angle. There is no longer a back or a front, the display follows your movements. Even if you orient the smartphone to face its edge, as illustrated on the right of the image. In the same way, the display could go around the phone. We are thinking of a wallpaper wider than the front, partially extending to the back.
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There would be no physical button, so any part of the device could be made touch-sensitive. For example, we should press the sides to lower or raise the volume, or more generally obtain features specific to the application currently in use. A bit like if one of them currently automatically assigned a special action to the button on our smartphone.
More surprising, here is a Mac Pro tower in the form of an octagonal glass prism. More precisely, the computer would be encased in a sort of transparent case. It's a little harder to imagine its use. Probably the display of some key information like component temperature, CPU or graphics chip usage percentage, or even warnings in case of hardware issues.
Finally, the Apple Watch would also end up with a dial that would ultimately be a glass rectangle. The usefulness is less obvious, since the back face is lost. On the other hand, it could be an opportunity to do without a physical button, which would give an impression of finesse superior to current models. It remains to be seen whether the glass edges would be used to display anything, as their surface area will be reduced. They could serve as a side notification bar, however, freeing up space on the main screen.
These projects have no guarantee of seeing the light of day. The main goal is to protect an idea in case the brand wants to realize it one day, while ensuring that no one else can do so before then. And if so, when? Not so long ago, a curved smartphone screen was thought to be the stuff of science fiction. A future where our everyday electronic devices are completely transparent may be closer than we think.
Source: USPTO
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