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The Apple Watch Digital Crown is a neat little feature that makes a lot of sense on a smartwatch, especially because it benefits from the high build quality that Apple has become famous for, but it looks like Cupertino is already looking beyond the wrist to expand this control method.
A new patent discovered by PatentlyApple shows that Apple wants to bring the Digital Crown on more devices in its portfolio, including the iPhone and the iPad, in a way that would provide owners with an additional touch input giving more accurate control of certain features.
While it’s not yet clear how Apple would integrate the Digital Crown in the iPhone design, the company explains in the patent that this feature could be used to control what it’s being called a cube-based user interface in the operating system.
Digital Crown’s purpose on an iPhone
Users can thus easily rotate the Digital Crown to switch between multiple screens using a cube-like UI, similar to what some Android devices already offer.
Apple thinks that this could lead to better organization of iPhone tasks, with the available screens integrated into this cube to play the role of small profiles that users can switch between by simply rotating the Digital Crown, such as work, home, and others.
Additionally, the Digital Crown can be used for a variety of other tasks as well, including controlling the volume easily when listening to music - this makes sense given the fact that Apple is already exploring ways to make the iPhone bezel-less, which means that the company could give up on the side volume buttons.
Resizing text in a browser could be another helpful feature of the Digital Crown, and so could be zooming in and out photos and other types of content.
Certainly, Apple has more in mind when it comes to bringing this little Apple Watch feature on more of its devices, but for the moment, this is just in patent stage and there’s no evidence that mass production is prepared. It’s the second time we hear about such a plan, though, so don’t be too surprised if at some point in the future the Digital Crown shows up on an iPhone.