How do you determine when your shoes are about to wear out? There are some who might want a pair of shoes until it literally breaks apart on them, while others might throw out a pair of shoes once the grips on the soles have faded, but it seems that Apple wants a more hi-tech way of solving that “problem”.

The company has filed for a patent for a system that will be able to detect when your shoes start to wear out, and will be able to notify and alert the user when that happens. This involves the use of a sensor that can detect the activity of the user, and a processor that processes the activity data from the sensor which will be embedded in the shoe itself.

As Apple notes in its patent, this is important because when shoes wear out, so does its physical support. This means that while a shoe might still look wearable, it might not necessarily be “good” for the wearer as it might be less adept at providing support, which in turn could cause the wearer to experience injury.

That being said, this is only a patent which means that it is unclear if Apple has plans to actually make it a reality. What’s interesting though is that this isn’t Apple’s first time having something to do with shoes. Some of you guys might recall that several years ago, Apple worked with Nike on a sensor for shoes that would transmit data to an iPod, so seeing Apple continue to explore the idea doesn’t really come as a surprise.

Filed in Apple >General. Read more about and .

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