A newly-reported patent application that Apple has filed with the US Patent & Trademark Office is an explicit indication that the company’s R&D department is working hard at 3D technology, for potentially tracking a user’s position, and adjusting a 3D-display based on the position.

As per the Patent & Trademark Office, the Apple application, filed on June 17 last year, pertains to electronic devices that include “a sensing mechanism operative to detect the user's position relative to a display.”

Apple’s patent application, ‘Systems and Methods for Adjusting a Display Based on the User's Position,’ hints at a 3D display that is automated to make adjustments to its view and angle of 3D objects, depending on the position of the viewer’s head with regard to the display.

The patent application says: “For example, the electronic device may include a camera operative to detect the position of the user's head. Using the detected position, the electronic device may be operative to transform displayed objects such that the displayed perspective reflects the detected position of the user…. In some embodiments, the electronic device may overlay the environment detected by the sensing mechanism to provide a more realistic experience for the user.”

According to a MacRumors. com report, this so-called ‘head-tracking’ technology has been used in one form or the other for many years, but hadn’t apparently caught Apple’s attention thus far.