iPhone 6 or iPad 3 May Feature Smart Pen

Being one of the leaders in consumer technology, Apple has a lot of cool ideas in store for the public, especially with their iPhone lineup. While many expect the company to announce either the iPhone 5S or the iPhone 6 this year, the company appears to have filed a patent for three smart pens in Europe that essentially serve to overhaul—or revolutionize—digital pens.

PatentlyApple, a website which dedicates itself to "celebrating Apple's spirit of invention" discovered that the company filed three new patents from Apple that are "chock full of great ideas". The patents for their styluses are quite unlike what we have at the present and serve multiple purposes.

While it's very much on the technical side, what I've been able to get out of it is that the pen designs they've patented allow for users to change the tips to serve different tasks. For example, one of the patents allows for the stylus to function as a pencil would by allowing software to detect the orientation of the stylus relative to the surface, and thus improve the realism of anything you might draw or write on the surface. One of the biggest problems with styluses right now is that they function the same way a mouse cursor would, with no way to determine their orientation. Some styluses from Wacom can detect pressure, but that's about it. A pen with the ability to provide orientation details would allow artists and calligraphers to do much more.

It goes without saying that their next iteration of the iPhone may not necessarily come with support for a stylus, but why else would they patent a device that could very easily work with it? More than likely, any intelligent pens they use could work with the iPad and their lineup of personal computers. Doing so would effectively put companies like Wacom out of business.