Is Apple Working on Bone Conduction AirPods?

What Leads To This Finding?

It all began when we were told about these latest news:

• The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted a patent for Apple to work on "Multipath audio stimulation using audio compressors."
• That could mean that the patent is probably to design and produce a listening device (like AirPods) that could use bone conduction, plus air-based sound transmission.
• It could also mean that Apple is planning a major accessibility upgrade specially designed for people with hearing impairments that haven't yet been able to use AirPods.
• Or this could also mean that Apple is working on AirPods with better sound and better accessibility for people with hearing impairments. 

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted Apple a patent for an "apparatus for delivering audio signal" that uses both your typical air-based sound conduction, plus something known as a "bone conduction transducer."

If this is a blueprint for AirPods that exploit the relationship between bone structure and vibrations in your skull to create sound outside your ear canal, it's a game changer for people born without external ear canals, or those who find earbuds painful or ineffective.

According to the background information in the patent, bone conduction headphones let you hear audio directly through vibrations in your skull. Air conduction headphones, by contrast, first convert sound signals into air vibrations your ear can detect.

Bone conduction headphones can use multiple bones in your cranium to establish sound, from the temporal bones on the side of your face at the front or the back of your ears, to the sphenoid bone at the front middle portion of your skull, to even your jaw bone.

What Does It Mean For Us?

These kinds of hearing devices have several advantages. 

1. They don't obstruct the air in your ear canal, hence the headphones make it easier for you to hear external sound while listening to your audio. (This is particularly important for runners)
2. Since air isn't required for sound transmission, this kind of technology may be able to be used as underwater headphones.
3. A good alternative for people whose auditory pathways may have been impaired or damaged.

Still though, there are drawbacks that includes:

1. High-frequency sounds, which the inventors say is a major challenge. Human hearing generally ranges from 20 to 20,000 Hertz (Hz), per the patent, but bone conduction technology begins to decline at ranges higher than 4,000 Hz.
2. Possible tickling sensation of the bones in your head that might cause you feeling like your head is vibrating.

It's good to note though that bone conduction isn't a new technology, and Apple didn't actually invent it. At least the 1970s, researchers introduced the first bone-anchored hearing aids.

To address the first drawback mentioned, the apparatus might use filters to assist in producing lower frequencies from higher frequencies for which the bone conduction device can't compensate.

And to get past that weird tickling sensation of the bones in your head literally vibrating, Apple has thought of using compressors to reduce the intensity of those audio signals.

To me personally, I am looking forward to this technology to be commercialized. I want to live in a world where technologies can help humans to upgrade their lives for both able and disabled persons. Every human matters and I would love to see us enjoying music together.