Touchscreens are great because they offer bigger screens, thus better graphics and are more natural to interact with but have the disadvantage of getting dirty very fast, even if you wash your hands every 30 minutes (and you know that’s impossible). To alleviate this problem Apple has filed a patent for a new type of touch interface that doesn’t need the screen to be touched as special sensors will detect user’s fingers while approaching the screen. Once this happens the interface reacts (like in normal touch mode) or can magnify that particular area, useful when having to interact with windows controls for example (the close, maximize, minimize area).

    Touchscreen that doesn't need to be touched

    Touchscreen that doesn't need to be touched

    This is indeed an interesting way users could interact with touch interfaces in future, even if probably the term will be changed to something related to ‘sensing’, to describe more accurate this action. I guess this technology will use some sort of force field that extends a few millimeters or centimeters outside the screen surface or some kind of invisible layer of lasers (but this is less likely as it will require a recessed screen into the casing resulting in thicker devices, and we’ve just got rid of those).

    It’s pretty evident that this patent filed by Apple is interesting to follow in the future so I’ll keep you updated once more info becomes available, but I don’t expect devices running them to become mainstream till at least 2015-2020, as batteries have to improve to allow a device to run a force field Star Trek style.

    Source: Patently Apple