It’s no surprise that Samsung’s S Pen stylus is doing extremely well in its Galaxy Note lineup of devices. Yesterday, we saw reports that LG will include a stylus for its next generation smartphone, the G4, and now, it looks like Apple would like to join in on the fun too. The Cupertino company was recently granted a patent for a stylus or a smart pen that can capture digital copies of handwritten notes.
Filed all the way back in 2010, that’s even before the first generation Samsung Galaxy Note was first launched, the patent is for a stylus that allows a person to write on a any surface, and the content will be displayed on a smartphone or a tablet. This could be a very handy tool for students whereby whatever the teacher writes on the whiteboard will be mirrored on their device.
According to the patent, the styus by Apple is a capacitive stylus, and uses various sensors like accelerometers and other motion-sensing hardware. The stylus will only be activated when picked up by a user and when it’s nib is pressed, making it more energy efficient. The sensors will then track the movement of the stylus and transmit the data to a paired device.
On paper, the stylus sounds more like an accessory for iOS devices, like the Livescribe smart pen, but it doesn’t mean that Apple won’t use the same technology for a built-in stylus for its future product, right?
(Source: AppleInsider via: PhoneArena)
