Apple comes up with a game-changing idea for waterproof smartphones

These days every flagship smartphone is IP67 minimum certified which ensures the smartphone stays waterproof for up to 30 minutes if submerged in 1 meter deep water.

Most of the smartphones use oleo phobic coating to keep the ports water free. However, Apple in its new patent application 2017/0127163 titled, ‘Hydrophobic Mesh Cover’ describes how their hydrophobic coating design ejects the water out of the speaker.

The patent describes a mesh screen cover that is hydrophobic in nature to resist the entry of liquid in one area and a hydrophilic area which aids in the removal of liquid in the iPhone’s audio chambers. Apple’s patent application explains that the inner side hydrophilic coating is basically to speed up the removal of water out of the iPhone and mentions the use of a sensor in the acoustic chamber of the phone itself. For this, the speaker may also be designed in a new way which would send an audio pulse blast not audible by the human ear while sending the water out of the iPhone where it entered. The process is likely to work in a similar fashion as Apple Watch 2’s tiny speaker which ejects the water out.  As this is just a patent application, one can only speculate on which iPhone they are likely to incorporate such designs.

Citius Minds is a technical consulting firm based out of Chicago. We provide specialized patent analytics and litigation services to patent professionals across the globe. We are highly appreciated and loved by our clients for the following service offerings:
| Patent Invalidity Search | Patentability Search | Freedom to Operate Search | Infringement search | Patent Landscape Analysis | Patent Portfolio Analysis | Infringement Contentions | Invalidity Contentions | Prior art search | Rule 11 charts | Source Code review | Pre-litigation analysis | Clearance search | Patent Validity Search |