Back in Fall 2010 a patent from Apple detailing a new ‘Smart Bezel’ feature for the iPad emerged. This new bezel is said to be a touch-sensitive gesture area surrounding the iPad’s display. Now, with the iPad being rumored to lose the stationary home button, it would make sense that Apple would implement something similar to what is found in the ‘Smart Bezel’ patent.
Adding credence to this Patently Apple has uncovered yet another patent relating to the smart bezel and this patent features a tablet device with the new bezel, but the drawing does not include the home button.
The patent describes some possible features for the bezel such as double-tapping the bezel to turn the iPad on and off, touching the bezel in certain places with certain amounts of pressures to the control brightness and volume, and touching the bezel in a certain way to lock and unlock the display.
We think that this ‘Smart Bezel’ along with the new iPad gestures Apple is testing in iOS 4.3 would be a good replacement for their physical home button in mobile iOS products.
