Of all the portable device displays on the market today, Apple has one of the most impressive with the Retina Display on the iPhone 4. It offers such a high resolution you can’t see the individual pixels while at the same time allowing multiple people to view content with wide viewing angles.
That’s all well and good when you want to share what’s on the screen with others, but what about those times when you are reading a private document, placing an order you don’t want your girlfriend to see, or just want to stop people looking over your shoulder at your beautiful screen?
Patently Apple has encountered a recent patent application by Apple that indicates that future displays of Apple mobile devices such as the iPod touch, iPhone and iPad will provide options for 'privacy mode viewing'.That’s all well and good when you want to share what’s on the screen with others, but what about those times when you are reading a private document, placing an order you don’t want your girlfriend to see, or just want to stop people looking over your shoulder at your beautiful screen?
Here’s how it will work, according to the patent:
How the user will actually enter privacy viewing mode is illustrated in Apple’s patentFIG. 2A’s patent point 210 below. Here we see that touching a corner of a future display will pull up a touch event option allowing the user to “change angle.” This will provide the user with options of entering various modes such as privacy and others. Refer to the above image for details on the privacy mode toggle is rumored to work.