Samsung Wants to Beat Apple to the Punch with New Air Gesture Controls

As the world’s No. 1 and No. 2 smartphone vendors by volume, Apple and Samsung have a long and riveting history of attempting to out-do one another.

Whether they’re defending their creations behind courtroom doors, actually building innovative and competitive new products, or simply mocking one-another in ridiculous TV ads — there’s no argument that Apple and Samsung have often been at each-other’s throats in their bids to woo consumers.

Samsung’s latest effort to try and beat Apple at its own game may have been revealed in a new patent application that was published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office earlier this month, as Patent Apple reports.

Samsung Motion-Based UI

Samsung is looking into creating a new User Interface (UI) mode for its future devices, according to the USPTO documents, allowing a touchscreen device like a smartphone or tablet to work with a predominantly motion-based UI.

“A portable device comprises a display unit; a sensor unit for sensing a user’s motion; and a processor configured to control,” Patently Apple states. “If the user’s motion is sensed by the sensor unit,” the display could engage a User Interface (UI) mode “corresponding to a type of the sensed motion.”

For example, Samsung’s Patent FIGS 4A through 4D, shown above, are meant to illustrate the proximity UI mode in action, while  FIG 5 is meant to illustrate a theoretical method of interaction with the proximity UI mode.

What Would This Technology Mean for Me?

It’s certainly interesting to see Samsung dabbling in this new and burgeoning area of technology. Apple has been granted multiple patents covering similar gesture-based input methods — not only for future iPhone devices, but also for other upcoming gadgets like the wearable Apple Glass eyewear.

Motion gestures may very well be the future of how we interact with everyday devices like our phones, tablets, computers and more.

And while motion-based input is likely not going to replace the more traditional capacitive, finger-based input method anytime soon, it’ll certainly be interesting to see how Apple and Samsung ultimately come to incorporate these futuristic features into their future devices.

What’s clear from Samsung’s patent filing, which can be viewed and combed through in exhaustive detail over on Patent Apple, is that the Galaxy-maker is still hard at work — preparing for a complex future that may even feature more epic court battles, as the global tech-titans try to innovate their way to the future.