Future iPhones could come with a dedicated ‘underwater mode’, new patent reveals

Published On: February 7, 2024

Highlights

Apple has patented an “underwater user interface”.
Future iPhones could feature this underwater mode.
Let’s see how the underwater feature would work on iPhones based on the patent filed.

Apple is known to invest big time in several cutting-edge technologies that would someday be part of its products. One such feature is the recently patented “underwater user interface”. The Cupertino-based company could equip one of its iPhones down the line with this neoteric feature. Here, we will try to understand what this feature is all about and how it could enhance the iPhone experience.

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Apple underwater user interface patent

Apple filed a 78-page patent on Tuesday for this “underwater user interface”. The idea behind it is just like it sounds — to activate an alternative UI on your iPhone when it is underwater.

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Apple finds the current iOS interface to be “cumbersome and inefficient” whence the iPhone is submerged in water or is just plain wet. It goes on to call the current interface to be “outdated, time-consuming and inefficient” underwater. You must have experienced it on an iPhone or for that matter any smartphone. The icons, widgets and UI elements don’t respond to your touch input like they would otherwise do.

It could be another way too, i.e., moist or wet fingers can also affect your interaction with the screen or UI. Your taps could register wrongly or result in unintentional responses from the UI.

So, to overcome this Apple has come up with this underwater mode, whereby the iOS interface will have larger buttons, fewer menus and more inputs would be using the on-device buttons like the power button or volume rockers.

In some sense, we think it could look like the Easy Mode on One UI or icons on third-party Android launchers like Big Launcher. If that’s the case, this interface could be useful for the elderly and the visually impaired. But, we can be sure only once we have more details.

Additionally, the App Library or Home Screen could allow vertical scrolling instead of horizontal swiping in the current iOS UI.

When to expect underwater mode on iPhones?

Apple has just published the patent and the thing must be an experimental initiative. It may not even make it to a retail iPhone, at least anytime soon. We are not expecting this feature on the iPhone 16 series as we are not sure if it is just a software feature or if it requires hardware engineering.

For now, you could buy waterproof cases from accessory makers like Catalyst, if the built-in protection isn’t enough. In case you didn’t know, the latest iPhone 15 series offers up to 6m water resistance for 30 minutes with IP68 rating. This should be fine for limited water exposure.