Apple has some far-fetched patents that may come to fruition sometime soon, but the company's latest patent may just change our lives altogether. The latest patent is titled “Content Creation Using Electronic Input Device on Non-electronic Surfaces” which is a very fancy way to say that Apple is working on a stylus that can work on any surface. 

Netherlands-base website TechTastic discovered the patent and details an input device that will be able to write on any surface and send data to a device. The patent was filed last July and has since been made public in January 2018. 

© World Intellectual Property Organization

The device is said to communicate wirelessly with an external sensor and will be able to track force, stroke duration, three-dimensional motion and orientation, and “plurality” of strokes. All of these movements will be registered and sent to a device via an external sensor that will use radio frequency or acoustic signals. 

© World Intellectual Property Organisation

This basically means you will not require a secondary device to write on or a touchscreen smartphone for digital sketching. You can use it to take down notes, write, design on your desktop by simply stroking it on any surface. 

© World Intellectual Property Organisation

The image above shows that the device will have a pair of sensors that can measure all your actions and writing inputs close to the screen. So yes, if this patent comes to fruition, you can theoretically use motion and orientation sensors to teach the path of the stylus. This also means that one will not require a surface and users will be able to write, sketch and annotate in mid-air.

It will be interesting to see how this stylus could be applied in the real world or what Apple will do with this concept. At the moment, the Apple Pencil only works with the iPad Pro and if a stylus can work any surface, this would be one of the most revolutionary ideas ever since the stylus was invented. This would, in turn, make lives easier for creative folks and also aide in making multi-tasking easier.