Apple iWatch wristband patent shows the future of slap bracelets

Apple's iWatch has been making the rounds lately, and we've seen our fair share of mockups and possible ideas going behind the rumored smartwatch. Today, for instance, a new patent filing suggests Apple is working on a slap bracelet of the future, complete with a small AMOLED flexible display. It comes straight out of Apple's R&D labs with the name "bi-stable spring with flexible display."

Of course, the watch would be able to communicate with your iOS device and could things such as view recent calls, view and reply to text messages, manage music playlists, and look up addresses on Apple Maps possibly. The patent also describes a number of ways of powering the smartwatch, including using a solar panel or possibly even kinetic power sources.

Of course, this is only a patent application, which most of the time means that these things usually ever come to fruition in real life. Apple is all about setting trends, but we don't think that means bringing old trends back from the early 90s with a new slap bracelet that you can also hit your classmates with (remember that?).

An Apple smartwatch certainly isn't farfetched — users are already using iPod Nanos as watches, but we have a hard time believing that Apple would use a slap bracelet design for their official iWatch. Of course, we're not really sure what they might do as far as design, but it's safe to assume that it could be something fairly mindblowing.

[via Patently Apple]