Will the new Apple Watch have a round face?
Apple is said to be able to soon improve the appearance of its Apple-branded smartwatch after the company received a new patent for a wearable device with a round face that is completely different from the current one.
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| Simulation image of a round-faced Apple Watch. Photo: Apple Insider |
In a world dominated by round-faced watches, Apple surprised many by adopting a square-faced design for its first generation of smartwatches.
With the original Apple Watch, launched in April 2015, and the Apple Watch 2, which was launched alongside the iPhone 7/7 Plus this past September, Apple seemed to be determined to stick with the angular, distinctive watch face. However, a new patent titled "Electronic Devices Having a Display Having Curved Edges" suggests that the company may have changed its mind.
While Apple won’t be the first manufacturer to release a round-faced smartwatch, the company has previously spoken out against the traditional face design. “When the primary function [of a smartwatch] is to display lists, a round face doesn’t make sense,” Jony Ive, Apple’s design guru, told The New Yorker last year.
Unlike other smartwatches, such as the Moto 360, current Apple Watch models use the entire screen to display images.
In the new patent, Apple engineers explain: "Pixel arrays are typically square in shape. However, square pixel arrays are difficult to fit inside a circular device. Circular displays may have bottleneck areas where signal paths become overcrowded, resulting in inefficient use of display area."
The solution, according to Apple engineers, is to arrange the pixel array in columns and rows of varying lengths. They also propose bending the data lines, forcing them to travel across two or more columns of pixels. This not only saves space and reduces crowding inside the watch, but also puts the pixels in the active zone.
Since Apple is facing a lot of criticism for its decision to use a square display for its smartwatch, it is likely that the tech giant will realize the above invention with a round-faced Apple Watch model in the future.
According to VNN
