The future Apple Pencil could have a sensor to sample real-world colors

Apple is exploring new Apple Pencil technology that could allow the device to sample real-world colors for use in digital art, drawings, publishing, and more, according to an Apple patent application published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. this week.

Entitled “Computer System with Color Sampling Pen,” the patent describes a computer pen that “may have a color sensor.”

The color sensor would be equipped with several photodetectors capable of measuring light for different color channels, allowing it to detect and sample a color from a real-world object, such as a flower.

The pencil could also be equipped with a light to make it easier for photodetectors to accurately determine a color, and the rest of the patent describes an Apple Pencil-like design with an elongated body, a tip, and an opposite end, with the tip able to work with a touch screen.

Apple says that the functionality of the color sensor could be located at the end of the pen, at the tip, or attached to the tip via a light guide.

With this type of technology, PenApple Pencil‌ users could do something like holding the ‌Apple Pencil‌ against a real-world object, with the ‌Apple Pencil‌ reading the color. It could be used for photorealistic paintings or simply to sample unique colors of grass, plants, existing art, and more.

According to the patent, the stylus would detect color and then place it on a color palette in a drawing program, where the color could be assigned to a brush. Apple also suggests that the color sensor could perhaps be used for other purposes, such as calibrating displays, calibrating printers, making health-related measurements, and identifying paint colors for home projects, which would make the PenApple Pencil‌ even more versatile.

Optical color sensors like this already exist and have been used in various ways. In fact, we have tested a simple and rudimentary optical color sensor at Sphero Specdrums, a product meant to turn color into sound. This product includes a small finger ring that can be tapped against real-world objects to make sounds based on perceived color, but Apple’s implementation would presumably be much more accurate.

Apple patents all kinds of different technologies, some of which seem plausible to implement and others that are quite fantastic. There is never any guarantee that Apple’s patents will be used for real products, and in fact, most patents are for technologies that are never released.

For that reason, it is not known if Apple really plans to add a color sensor to the PenApple Pencil‌, or if this is simply an idea that will never get out of the possibilities phase.