Apple is considering a way to combine the Vision Pro and its autonomous car project

THE Apple augmented reality headset could it be useful outside of your office or from the back of your couch? Apple hopes so, if we are to believe a recent patent filed by the brand.

Wearing the Apple Vision Pro while driving your car is a bad idea according to the US government, but for Apple, maybe not so much. If we are to believe a patent unearthed by the Patently Apple site, the iPhone manufacturer is reportedly thinking about a method to combine “lspatial computing» and autonomous driving.

A virtual dashboard

As we recently learned, Apple has not abandoned its idea of ​​a high-speed car. A vehicle would indeed be in development for a potential release around 2028. And, in order to forge links in its software ecosystem as Apple knows how to do so well, the company plans to use the Vision Pro to display certain information concerning the vehicle.

In a collection of 8 patents filed this week, Apple details different ways of displaying dashboard information in front of the driver’s eyes. In one of his patents it is noted that “in some cases, the system is part of a device worn by the user, such as a headset“. Accompanied by illustrations showing GPS guidance and a speedometer, we can pretty well imagine the idea that Apple has in mind.

The Apple ecosystem is growing

In the future imagined by the company, the Vision Pro (or, more likely, its future successors) could help with driving while leaving the field of vision clear for the person behind the wheel. Some buttons could be entirely virtual and controlled by “a hand gesture, a facial gesture and/or a gesture in the air“, which also reminds us of the way Apple implemented software navigation on its Vision Pro.

Obviously, filing a patent never means that such innovations will necessarily see the light of day. Apple just reserves the right to experiment with this subject and sue a company that dares to develop an idea a little too similar to this one. This still gives an idea of ​​the direction in which Apple wants to move, where the company’s ecosystem would no longer stop at the iPhone, iPad and Mac, but would now integrate the car and augmented reality. Enough to imagine even crazier possibilities… and potentially even more dangerous.

Source: uspto.gov via Patently Apple