Future Apple Watch owners might exchange data with a handshake or fist bump

 

As published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Apple’s filing for “Gesture-based information exchange between devices in proximity” is a comprehensive application describing a method of facilitating the secure transfer of data between two nearby portable devices, including wearables like Apple Watch, over an ad hoc wireless connection.

According to the document, Apple is proposing a simple, yet intuitive, interface for triggering said transfers. Similar to old-school iOS app Bump, the system works by detecting user gestures, in this case a “greeting event,” whoch then activates a customizable data sharing process.

The backend procedure is expectedly much more sophisticated than “bump-to-send” incarnations, with device context, security and user privacy all taken into consideration.

In some embodiments, two users with wearables —smartphones are also mentioned as potential candidate devices —initiate the process with a greeting event. These gestures include any motion that brings one user device in close proximity to another device and incorporates a distinctive movement or acceleration.

Källa: Future Apple Watch owners might exchange data with a handshake or fist bump