After the success of the AirPods, Apple is busy with its next audio accessory. These Apple headphones now pop up in a patent that shows how it works.
Apple headphones patent shows bendable design
Patently Apple discovered an important patent that points to the development of Apple’s own headphones. This is an ‘over ear’ headphone that, unlike AirPods, you don’t put in your ears, but place over it.
The patent describes how these headphones use touch sensors that are located on the side of the earphones. With this you can, for example, adjust the volume or play the next song. As with the AirPods, the Siri speech assistant will probably also be built-in. This allows you to switch with a voice command from the artist, provided you have Apple Music.
AirPods are so popular because you can easily take them with you. Apple faces a challenge to do something similar with these headphones because the headband that holds the two earphones together makes the product a lot bigger.
This patent gives us more information about the ways in which Apple wants to solve this. For example, the company writes about a way to make the headband foldable against the piece against your ear. That way you can turn the headphones into a flat rectangle after use, which you can then put in a storage case. The headband would, therefore, be made of a special material that makes this flexibility possible.
Capacitive sensors and noise canceling
Several capacitive sensors are also hidden in the earphones themselves. They know when they come into contact with your ear cup, so that just like with AirPods, the music can start playing automatically. Because the headphones know exactly where your ear is, the sound may also be optimized for different types of ears.
The last striking detail in the text of the patent describes that the headphones support noise cancellation. This popular function suppresses ambient noise, making audio extra audible, even when you are on an airplane, for example. It seems that these Apple headphones will also support this feature.
When these headphones actually appear, wait a little longer. Various rumors point to a disclosure towards the end of this year, but relatively little is known about this. But the fact that this accessory will come after the success of the AirPods certainly seems certain after this patent. Until then, read our overview with everything we know about Apple’s ‘over ear’ headphones.