Antenna lines on the iPhone5, 5S, 6 and 6 Plus haven’t exactly been a reason to rejoice for proud Apple owners, and now Apple seems to have taken a bold move in order to eradicate this disgruntlement.
Apple today filed a patent application for a non-capacitive or radio frequency-transparent material with an anodized metal appearance. If used for the casing of the iPhone, this type of material would let Apple get rid of the ‘unwieldy’ antenna bands.
This would give the entire product a premium, metallic look without compromising on the cellular functionality of the device. Additionally, the Cupertino giant has stated that it could apply a number of techniques to produce anodized metal.
Apple had previously encountered mass criticism over iPhone 4’s antenna which was wrapped around the outside of the phone, and if you held it in a certain way, bridging the gap between two antenna segments, you ended up getting what is called as antenna attenuation. Eventually, the call could drop.
Apple, in its official statement, said that “one design challenge associated with computing devices is maintaining a sleek and consistent appearance of a metallic outer enclosure for housing the various complex internal components.”
Apple has detailed the mechanism and technicalities in its application as follows:
Composite structures that have an appearance of an anodized bulk metal but that is non-capacitive and/or radio frequency (RF) transparent are disclosed. The composite structure can be part of an enclosure of an electronic device. The composite structure can give the enclosure a metallic look without interfering with the functioning of some electronic components of the electronic device, such as RF antennas, touch pads and touch screens. Some embodiments involve forming a metal oxide layer and depositing a non-capacitive layer on the metal oxide layer. Some embodiments involve forming an imitation metal oxide layer and depositing a non-capacitive layer on the imitation metal oxide layer.
Further, the patent application indicates that this process could be utilized in improving the range of Apple products, like the Macs, iPad and the buzzing Apple Watch, which has already clocked 2.8 mn sales. It would be rather interesting to watch how Apple goes forward and refine it’s already industry successful product designs.
