Rings on your fingers and bells on your toes? Add in anklets on your lower leg, chokers around your neck, or even longer lanyards, and according to a newly granted patent, Apple's long-rumored plans for a smart ring now appear to have expanded significantly.
There's no doubt that the Cupertino giant is finally taking the possibility of an Apple Ring seriously – something that could perhaps rival the Oura Generation 3 or Ultrahuman Ring Air. But since Tim Cook's behemoth started expanding its vision of the possibilities of wearable tech (I could point you to an August 2023 filing for AirPods charging cases that can be worn like jewelry), newly granted patentfirst reported by Apple Insiderhas made it unmistakably clear that the idea involves much more than rings on the fingers.
As long as your appendage has room for it, Apple apparently wants to put a ring (shaped device) on it.
While the “Electronic Ring Apparatus System” in the Apple patent proposes a clever “finger ring housing with a finger-shaped opening”, the fact that it could be Sliding over a number is now merely mentioned as an example between different options.
The gist of the patent is: “The ring device may have a ring shape that allows the ring device to be worn on a user's body part (e.g., around the wrist, arm, leg, ankle, neck, head, etc.) and/or other body part ).”
You know how people wear rings on chains as charms or pendants? That is very possible. Apple's patent illustrations accompanying the text also show physical controls on the side of an octagonal smart ring device (labeled 48), but the application doesn't indicate what these little “component” buttons might do.
Advice: A malleable wearable Apple Ring is an open target
The device itself is therefore still conceptual: ring-shaped but not necessarily for your finger. The real meat within the Apple application is the 'companion devices' that your ring-shaped Apple wearable could play nicely with. For example, the wearer could use “hand gestures, point input… involving the position of the user's body” during their daily activities – and remember: pointing and gesture control using a ring device is something that has already been patented by Apple back in 2020.
Since Apple expects you to wear the ring-shaped device all day, the patent goes on to say that it “facilitates the interaction between the ring device and objects in the user's environment.”
For example, if you come across an interesting item with an NFC tag while walking through a mall, your wearable might notice that your curiosity has been piqued and display the necessary information about it (perhaps on an Apple screen lanyard around your neck) . ?) – especially when you pause and/or point to what interests you.
Of course, these words should not be taken as gospel. This isn't a cold, hard truth that a malleable, multi-functional Apple Ring is in the pipeline. I mentioned it earlier today, but Apple is typically awarded over 4,000 patents each year (thanks, Insights (although according to this data, there's a noticeable drop in the number of applications Apple has filed this year, right?).
A quick scan of our Apple patent coverage proves that we're still waiting for much of the groundbreaking conceptual technology to work its way into our gadgets, handsets and audio headgear. That said, the first Apple Watch from 2015 was a technical milestone – and the fact that we're now working on the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 proves that the dedicated offering is only going to get bigger.
You don't have to be a tech expert to predict that an Apple Ring will include the very best sleep tracking and NFC technology, as well as Apple's own gesture technology (see the Double Tap gesture for starters) plus all the whistles and bells that come in an iOS ecosystem are included. , would definitely be a contender for our best smart ring roundup.
For now we wait…