Ten years back, Apple launched the inaugural Apple Pencil. Since then, the firm has rolled out three additional versions. Currently, as per a recently awarded patent from the US Patent and Trademark Office (through Patently Apple), it seems a future iteration of the Apple Pencil could potentially interface with your iPhone, and perhaps beyond.
The patent indicates that Apple is investigating an Apple Pencil that can produce content on surfaces that do not respond to touch. Through new optical sensors, users would have the ability to sketch or write on a device lacking a tactile display, such as your iPhone, a table, or other materials.
Among these sensors could be optical flow sensors and laser speckle flow sensors. The patent describes, “Optical flow sensors might identify spatial-temporal variations in image brightness (e.g., changes in brightness from one frame to the next) to assess the movement of the input device. In some scenarios, an optical flow sensor may consist of an emitter (e.g., a light-emitting diode (LED)) that projects light onto a target (e.g., a surface), a detector (e.g., an image sensor) that captures a visual of an environment to discern light reflected from or reaching the target (e.g., surface) in response to light emitted from the input device, and a lens or array of lenses designed to collimate or adjust emitted light beams.”
Apple also provides a few instances of how this next-gen Apple Pencil might operate, pointing out that the optical sensors may be utilized to “identify attributes of the input device such as position, orientation, and/or movement of the input device.”
In the end, this next-gen Apple Pencil could interact with your iPhone, but it may also shed light on why Apple hasn’t implemented support for the Apple Pencil Pro on the Apple Vision Pro. With the forthcoming visionOS 26 update, Cupertino is introducing compatibility for third-party accessories like PlayStation’s VR controller. However, there’s still no indication of Apple enabling its own iPad accessory for the headset.
BGR will keep you informed if Apple ever applies that patent, allowing you to start using the Apple Pencil with your iPhone or any other device.
