Someday, touch might not be the only way you control your iPad. The iPads of the future might be manipulated by 3D gestures, a patent uncovered by Patently Applesuggests.
A patent application filed by Apple with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office shows that you’d be able to control cursors, icons, files, lists, text, images, etc. with various hand signals. There is an array of gestures that could be used to manipulate these elements like symbols such as check marks or question marks; letters or pre-set patterns; a pattern set by the user; or combinations of these.
If Apple adds this feature to the iPad, it means you’d be able to control your tablet from across the living room, similar to the way the Xbox Kinect works. The patent doesn’t mention Siri, the integrated voice-control Apple debuted with the iPhone 4S, but including that service with 3D gestures could make future devices even more compelling.
The patent filing also includes video annotation and editing through a gesture-controlled toolbar. It would offer some preset gesture-based commands for beginners, but more advanced users could customize their own controls.
Gesturing would work through the iPad’s front-facing camera, which means it might not be exclusive to a future iPad. If Apple opted to include this feature in a later version of iOS, it could work with other devices with dual cameras, such as the iPad 2 or the iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S. However, Patently Apple noted that older gadgets might not have the processing power to support this technology.
There’s no evidence as to when 3D gestures would be added to the iPad, but it’s widely rumored that an iPad 3 will debut in March of 2012.
Apple originally filed the patent in the second quarter of 2010.
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