Sometimes lending a phone to a friend or stranger can be an uncomfortable situation since you never know if they decide that after they place their call to explore your phone a little bit. Even if you have nothing to hide it’s still a little invasive, but thanks to a recent patent filed by Apple, perhaps those uncomfortable and awkward moments could be a thing of the past. The Apple patent describes a system in which users are able to unlock their iPhone through a variety of different gestures, and depending on the gestures, only certain functions would be made available.
For instance users could set one gesture to only allow access to the phone function or music player, and another function could unlock the camera, and so on. The patent also allows unlocking the phone that launches into the app directly, meaning that whoever is using your phone will not be able to see what apps you have, or your wallpaper. For non-security reasons, this would also allow for quick access to certain apps, such as pulling up the browser or note pad app immediately.
Such unlocking methods are definitely not new and various Android devices in the past along with custom ROMs have allowed similar functions, whereby a user can “draw” a letter or a shape to launch a specific app, such as the drawing of an envelope that would launch the email app. In any case there’s no telling if and when Apple will introduce this feature to iOS, but what do you guys think? Is this a feature you’d like to see in future iOS updates?
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