Is Apple making a smart ring to enable you to scroll wirelessly on your favorite social networks?

Once upon a time, we all dreamed of pocket-sized computers and now we’ve got some of the best phones ever made. Then we dreamed of putting on a screen on a watch and can you guess what happened? That’s right: smartwatches!

But when will we actually see a proper smart ring? And I’m not talking about those pseudo-smart rings that can detect calls and measure your temperature. I’m talking about proper innovation here.

And, given Apple’s recent announcement of the Vision Pro and how much that stirred the pot in the XR industry, I think we need the Cupertino company to act on this idea too. But what’s this? Apple already got another patent for a smart ring?

Well, now all of this text just sounds like I’ve thought it all up in advance!



And now, a short history on Apple smart ring patents:

• 2015: a ring with voice control and a camera
• 2019: a ring closer to a smartwatch than something of its own
• 2023: a ring that can give you input through haptics and allow for advanced gesture controls

Now, let’s pause here for a moment and bring something up: Apple is infamous for its amazing ecosystem of products. So making a smart ring now, when Apple TV is a thing and when the Vision Pro is headed our way — a ring, mind you, that can play nice with all of the Big A’s products — just makes sense, right?

So, let’s give some examples. For starters, different vibration patterns could be set up so that you could know where a given notification stems from. Not only that, but the ring has a pressure sensitive area, which could be pressed in order to trigger some pre-made response, like for when you are driving and can’t come to the phone.

Or, maybe that can trigger your microphone on your Apple Watch which would then transfer the message over to your iPhone 14? Just an example!

So, does this mean that Apple is making a smart ring? Not really, as with patents, this rarely means an obligation and more so a reservation of a specific rendition of an idea. Still though, this thing has been considered since 2015.

Who knows? It may be high time. But probably after the Vision Pro releases.