When Apple expanded its Discover My community two years in the past alongside its new AirTags, it additionally embraced a brand new lineup of third-party equipment and added enhanced location options to its personal simply misplaced devices like AirPods.
Though you’ve been capable of find your AirPods within the Discover My app because the very first mannequin was launched in 2016, that early integration was restricted to creating a misplaced AirPod emit a sound that will help you audibly observe it down. Plus, it solely labored if a number of AirPods had been out of the case.
Nonetheless, although Apple’s AirPods don’t pack in a U1 Extremely Wideband chip just like the AirTags, Apple was ready so as to add enhanced Discover My options in iOS 15 that even enabled Precision Discovering, permitting your iPhone to information you to the precise location the place your AirPods are hiding. It’s not fairly as exact as finding an AirTag — you received’t get actual distance and bearing — however you’ll know if you happen to’re “sizzling” or “chilly” as you attempt to find them.
Sadly, regardless of all these advances, Apple nonetheless hasn’t expanded its Discover My expertise to 2 different equipment the place it might be very helpful: the Siri Distant for the Apple TV 4K and the Apple Pencil.
When you aren’t more likely to take the Siri Distant out of your own home, it’s not unusual for folk to lose it in a sofa cushion or set it down in one other room. Siri as soon as supplied some short-lived hints that it could be coming, however two years have handed, with a brand new third-generation Apple TV 4K being launched within the meantime, and there’s nonetheless no signal of it. If misplacing your Siri Distant is an issue, you’ll nonetheless should resort to slapping an AirTag on it.
There could also be some excellent news for customers of one in all Apple’s different easily-misplaced equipment, because it appears to be like like Apple is pondering methods to deliver Discover My assist to the Apple Pencil.
‘Discover My Apple Pencil’
Whereas we will nonetheless hope that Apple would possibly work out methods to put a U1 chip into its stylus, a brand new patent software suggests the corporate is exploring different methods to do that.
Maybe the Apple Pencil merely doesn’t supply sufficient room for the {hardware} wanted to include the U1 chip, or possibly that is merely a matter of Apple experimenting with completely different applied sciences, however the patent in query proposes that the Apple Pencil might use an “acoustic resonator” that will help you work out the place you’ll have set your stylus down within the room.
“Finding a misplaced stylus, or different peripheral enter gadget may be made attainable by acoustic resonators built-in inside housing constructions of the stylus. Acoustic resonators may be shaped at an finish of the stylus reverse its tip, and may embody parts of the stylus outer housing which are thinned right down to an engineered thickness that has a specific resonant conduct or frequency.
– US Patent Software 20230161545A1
In accordance with the patent, a tool such because the Apple Pencil would incorporate a passive element within the cap of the pencil designed to reply to particular acoustic frequencies. An iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch would emit a sound particularly designed to set off these acoustic resonators within the pencil, which might assist the proprietor find the lacking stylus.
In its easiest type, this could solely help you find an Apple Pencil close by, however it might nonetheless be useful for individuals who often misplace their stylus below a stack of papers or set it down absent-mindedly of their residence or workplace.
Nonetheless, as with most patent purposes, Apple outlines a number of different prospects, together with having a request to find an Apple Pencil acquired by an iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch over the web and utilizing the microphones on these units to choose up the sign from the acoustic resonator. Such an implementation might open the door to finding an Apple Pencil in shut proximity to every other Apple units owned by the seeker of the stylus or presumably even instant members of the family in an iCloud Household Sharing group. Nonetheless, it appears unlikely this could be as versatile as utilizing Bluetooth LE because it’s onerous to think about Apple having each gadget on the globe emitting audio indicators in quest of misplaced Apple Pencils.
In fact, the same old caveats about Apple patent purposes additionally apply right here. Apple patents a fantastic many issues that by no means come to fruition, so whereas the corporate’s patent purposes present some fascinating perception into what its engineers are pondering, there’s no assure that we’ll ever see a Discover My Apple Pencil function, and even when we do, this is probably not the way it in the end works.