Apple Wants to Make It Easier to Text While Walking

Texting while walking can lead to a bumpy situation.

Apple has reportedly filed a patent application for “transparent texting,” a feature that would allow your iPhone’s rear-facing camera to capture and display video images of the scene in front of you, and play the live video feed in the background while you text, helping you avoid the next pothole in the street while never having to look up from your phone.

The feature would help to ensure that you don’t walk into a tree or fall down a set of stairs while engrossed in a text conversation.

Apple’s patent application states:

A user who is walking while participating in a text messaging session may inadvertently collide with or stumble over objects in his path because his attention was focused on his device’s display instead of the path that he was traversing. Even if a user remains stationary while participating in a text messaging session, that user may expose himself to some amount of danger or potential embarrassment if he is so engaged in his device’s display that he becomes oblivious to changes in his surrounding environment.

According to Apple Insider, this technology may be available soon.

It is unknown if Apple is planning to work such a feature into its next iOS build, but the tech required to enable similar functionality is already in place. A transparent texting window could even be considered a good fit with the new “flat,” layered iOS 7 design aesthetic.

I may not be a tech mastermind, but I have a different solution. Don’t text while you’re walking.

If this change comes to iPhones, prepare to say goodbye to human eye contact and hello to the tops of people’s heads, as they crouch over their phones, furiously texting about what time the dog needs to be fed, or what restaurant they want to eat at for dinner.

We recently posted about smartphones ruining people’s relationships. I don’t think transparent texting is going to help matters.

What do you think of Apple’s proposed transparent texting option? Tell us below or on our Facebook page.