Apple is apparently tapping into the vaping audience as per a new patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office this week, detailing the company's potential technology for vaporizing.
Filed last year, the patent outlines plans for a device or an apparatus that can regulate temperature to release heat from a substance within a canister. The device is also able to prevent air from entering the chamber where the substance is being vaporized. Could apple's next iDevice be a vaporizer?
Apple Vaporizer
Like most patents, this might point to Apple's plans to release a vaping product in the future, but hold your horses. While it does outline the vaporizing process, the patent doesn't specify what substance the device is designed to be used with, or whether it's a separate product intended for other purposes than recreational endeavors. More importantly, the patent doesn't mention an end user at all, let alone a human end user, so it's hard to say whether the notional product will be consumer-focused.
The details are a bit nebulous, as the patent only describes a "a substance that is to be vaporized or sublimated into a vapor." Many people use vapes to inhale nicotine or marijuana, and these devices are often tapped as cigarette replacements. The U.S Food and Drug Administration began regulating them last year, setting rules around manufacturing, distribution, and components of said devices.
So what could Apple's patent point to, if the notion of an Apple-branded vaporizer is far too a stretch to consider plausible? A number of possibilities enter the fore, including an air freshener, which makes sense for the most part, considering Apple's plans for a self-driving car, although those plans went down the drain last year, so that possibility is a no-go, apparently.
Whether the patent points to a fancy, Apple-stamped e-cigarette, or an olfactory device of sorts is hard to say. The patent may very well just be a preemptive strike from Apple, as most patents stand today — set in place to prevent others from doing similar plans, even if the originator doesn't do anything with the granted patent.
Smartphone That Doubles As A Vaporizer
It's mostly guesswork at this time, but Apple could take advantage of interactive holograms using vapor, which thanks to technology, is something that's entirely possible. There's even a smokeable Android smartphone called the Jupiter IO 3, so the notion is fairly foreseeable.
It could, however, be a long time before anyone finds out what Apple is really planning to do with the patent, or not do, as most patents prove. A proprietary vape from Apple sounds like a wacky prospect, something atypical of Apple's tech portfolio, but hey, branching out into other ventures wouldn't hurt, right? What's more, because vaporizers are also used in healthcare and agriculture, it's possible that Apple has its sight set on something beyond personal use.
When there's finally an Apple vape product, we'll let you know.
Do you think the patent points to Apple's potential entry to vaping? Feel free to sound off in the comments section below!
