Apple Car Could Feature Mood Lights; Patent Reveals Light-up Seats & Doors

Rumors and speculations about Apple Car will not simply go away because new patents keep on popping up online. Based on new reports, it appears that Apple has been given a new patent that would make the Apple Car a groundbreaking vehicle. As reported by Apple Insider, the latest Apple patent reveals that the Cupertino-based tech giant is researching plans for a vehicle lighting system involving embedding lenses, LEDs, and fiber optics in the interior, possibly to inform passengers to put on seatbelts at the commencement of a journey.

The ongoing automotive efforts of Apple, under the banner Project Titan cover a wide range of areas with significant visible work revolving on the self-driving vehicle systems. Apple has continuously come up with new concepts for other elements of the car, which includes how the interior of the vehicle would look like. One of the areas of interest in the latest patent allegedly for Apple Car is the interior.

This is the place where both the passenger and the driver spend most of their time interacting with the vehicle. Modern lighting systems are utilized for decorative purposes and also for information. Interestingly, Apple thinks these could be insufficiently flexible and do not offer enough information to users, or these are not aesthetically pleasing.

In the latest patent given by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) titled "Lighting systems of vehicle seats," Apple suggests that the Apple Car’s interior and any other vehicle could be designed to light up the car in surprising ways just by leveraging on the light-emitting diodes. Although generally used for displays, the Cupertino-based tech giant suggests utilizing OLED technology for the same illumination goals.

The Apple Car patent suggests that lighting could be utilized to light through openings in a cover layer. Additionally, lens structures could be used to assist the light through intended openings in the cloth material or fabric. Apple’s proposed application for this kind of technology is not only for panels and dashboards.

Instead, it proposes that the lighting system could be embedded into the seat or door panels of the Apple Car or any other vehicle. For passengers, this could notify them how to change their seat’s position or maybe advised them to put on their seatbelts.