Apple has applied for a new patent that can abate the importance of orientation lock. Orientation of the screen is a feature, which helps the screen to rotate with respect to gravity and usually determined with the help of Gyroscope sensor. Orientation lock is a setting with which you can avoid the unnecessary rotation of the screen. It is convenient, especially when you need your screen to stay in one orientation but you have to rotate your phone. It is simple and mundane but a handy feature. And, there is no innovation around it or at least it seemed like it until now.
What if you are laying sideways on bed and watching your phone with a tilt, which can result in the rotation of the screen multiple times. It can be annoying and there is a simple solution. Yes, we all know. Orientation lock. It is just a swipe-and-click away. But, what if you want to turn to the other side? You turn off the orientation lock and let it rotate to the comfortable orientation and turn it back on. It is now, two clicks. If you are immersed into an app or some media, you can clearly notice the small inconvenience.
Worry no more, Kelsey Y. Ho, Eric J. Blumberg, Benjamin Biron and Colin C. Terndrup has a solution. They, on behalf of Apple Inc., applied for a patent that can determine your screen orientation with respect to your face’s orientation while watching the screen. Boom, there you go. The subtle inconvenience with the orientation lock is now gone. A simple yet effective solution.
Some notable points in the patent application
In claim 1,
“...updating the orientation of the user interface on the display of the device using the orientation of the user's face in the captured image in response to a determination of the device orientation relative to gravity being the device is lying flat.”
The above claim is their objective.
In Summary,
[0087] “...the present technology can be configured to allow users to select to "opt in" or "opt out" of participation in the collection of personal information data during registration for services or anytime thereafter. In addition to providing "opt in" and "opt out" options, the present disclosure contemplates providing notifications relating to the access or use of personal information. For instance, a user may be notified upon downloading an app that their personal information data will be accessed and then reminded again just before personal information data is accessed by the app.”
In the above point, they are addressing that it is an optional feature and users have to “opt in” to utilize the feature.
[0088] “Moreover, it is the intent of the present disclosure that personal information data should be managed and handled in a way to minimize risks of unintentional or unauthorized access or use. Risk can be minimized by limiting the collection of data and deleting data once it is no longer needed. In addition, and when applicable, including in certain health related applications, data de-identification can be used to protect a user's privacy. De-identification may be facilitated, when appropriate, by removing identifiers, controlling the amount or specificity of data stored (e.g., collecting location data at city level rather than at an address level), controlling how data is stored (e.g., aggregating data across users), and/or other methods such as differential privacy. “
In the above point, they are addressing that once they do not need the data anymore, the user can delete it and also, how they are going to store data in secure ways to minimize the risk.
Is this feature even a big deal? If so, why? Well, yes and no. It is NOT a big deal because it eliminates a little inconvenience that we encounter frequently or barely. It IS a big deal, at least to me, because it represents the pursuit towards Perfection. These small nudges to the software and hardware when accrued over time shows us how far we have come and how far we can go. Like, how a software update reduced the acceleration time(0 to 60 mph) from 4.4s to 3.9s in Tesla Model 3 or how the iPad after the iPadOS update is far more usable and actually closer to a desktop computer than ever before. I just want to elucidate the whole patent with a real time scenario because sometimes, things are bigger than they seem or more helpful than they initially appear.
Thank you for reading. Contact me for any errors or inconsistencies.