Apple reportedly working on 'privacy screens' to prevent onlooking thieves from knowing your iPhone passcode
Let's face it, thieves are smart—they have their fugitive ways of knowing your personal data whether online or onsite without your discretion. And this applies even to your iPhone, which may even have its passcode, Face ID, or Touch ID activated.
To help prevent onlooking thieves from knowing your passcode and later gaining access to your data and money, Apple is reportedly working on new technology that would add more privacy to the screens of its iPhone, and even MacBook.
The Cupertino-based company is developing a hardware solution to this problem, as seen in the two patents it filed at the United States Patent and Trademark Office on Nov. 21.
As of now, Apple displays, whether LCD or OLED, have a 170-degree field of view which makes it easy for people, even those far from your device, to glance over your iPhone, iPad, or Mac screen and know what's on it.
The documents retrieved by tech outlet Apple Insider state that the purpose of the new technology is to prevent putting users' privacy at risk, especially when using the device in public.
Apple explained, "Electronic devices often include displays. For example, laptop computers have display. Displays are typically designed to display images over a relatively wide angle of view to accommodate movements in the position of the viewer relative to the display."
"In some situations, such as when a user of a laptop or a device with a display is using the device in public, the wide viewing angle is undesirable as it compromises privacy," it continued.
The first newly granted patent is titled "Privacy Films For Curved Displays" which Apple appears to be creating specifically for iPhone.
As the title suggests, a privacy film will be integrated into the screen of the iPhone "to reduce the viewing angle of the display." Similar to a polarizing film, the new technology makes use of a "light-blocking layer" which will only allow light to come in one direction.
This means that while the user is sitting in front of the screen, they will see both the "center and edges of the curved display" with full retina quality and brightness.
Meanwhile, those looking from the user's left or right side will either see nothing at all or, according to Apple Insider, just a blurry image.
The second patent, titled "Displays With Adjustable Angles of View," talks about a new technology the tech giant plans for its MacBook.
Instead of equipping the laptop with a privacy film, Apple is planning to make the MacBook's screen more secure with an "angle-of-view adjustment layer" which will be placed on top of all the different layers of the display.
The new layers will function as an "electrically controllable filter" which, with the help of "adjustable light-blocking structures," would enable the user to control how polarized the screen would be. To do that, the user would have to choose between operating the display in "private viewing mode" or "public viewing mode" on the laptop.
An extra layer of liquid crystal could also be built into the display which would serve as a color filter that will enable only the user to see certain colors on the screen.
