By Katie Davis
With all the talk that the next iPhone not meeting the expectation of it users, it might be waterproof according to a new patent awarded to Apple and open the door to the underwater selfie.
The recently granted patent, uncovered by Patently Apple, which is an Apple Inc. centric blog focused on dissecting Apple’s latest Intellectual Property outlined a system for colour-balancing photos shot underwater. It goes without saying that if Apple is working on technology to make sure photos taken underwater come out looking good, the they would also want to make sure that Apple product users would be using devices that themselves are waterproof.
The patent doesn’t really get into the mechanics of the devices that would be required to run this sort of underwater photography software, but it does mention that it could “operate on mobile devices,” specifically mentioning Apple’s iPhone and iPad lines. Currently, Apple doesn’t make any mobile devices that are waterproof, but there are case manufactures that that claim to offer cases to make the iPhone waterproof.
While it’s possible that Apple could be working on software that helps non-waterproof phones take better photos underwater, it seems more likely that it would be working on software like this for forthcoming phones that are actually waterproof. And there are other indications that the company’s next phone, likely called the iPhone 7, will be waterproof. Industry insiders suggesting that Apple will be removing the headphone jack on the new iPhone and replacing it with a Bluetooth technology but others suggesting that by shunning traditional wired headphones Apple would effectively stop people from listening to pirated music.
How so do you ask? Well traditional headphone jacks use an analogue technology, whereas the new iPhone will likely use the lighting charging jack to connect headphones, which is digital.
Apple could easily include software that would prevent illegally downloaded or streamed content from being played through the lightning port, something that wasn’t possible with the standard headphone jack.
It is unknown if Apple will go this route as it make users have to make a decision on what they might have to give up to go under water. Plus other companies, like Samsung, have managed to keep the standard headphone jack and make their phones waterproof.
A patent is just that a patent and although it seems likely that Apple would want to integrate this technology into its product offering we will have to wait until the product launch this month to see what Apple has in store for us for the new iPhone.