Many smartphone users around the world cannot use their device while in a car. Apple intends to help them with a future update.
Do you feel nauseous when you get into a vehicle? In France, it is estimated that just over 3 million people are affected by what is more commonly called “travel sickness”. This generally results in feelings of nausea, sweating or even vomiting depending on the degree of distress of the person.
These symptoms can also be amplified during certain activities such as reading, eating or using a smartphone. For the latter case, it is generally a conflict between your different visual and auditory senses. So, when you use your phone in the car, your eyes may tell you that your body is moving while your ears will believe the opposite. This then creates a discordance between your senses, leading to the feeling of motion sickness.
An issue that Apple has been looking into for several months. Only a few days before its next major conference on the sidelines of WWDC, the firm announced that it was working on a feature to greatly limit nausea linked to motion sickness.
The next big iPhone update, iOS 18, should therefore implement a feature called “Vehicle Motion”. The latter allows you to add several small visual elements in the form of points around the screen of your iPhone when you are in transport. The latter react automatically according to vehicle movements (acceleration, braking, etc.) to react accordingly.
If this technique is surprising (are simple points added to the screen really enough?), Apple believes that the results obtained by this new functionality are sufficient to offer it in a future update. The “Vehicle Motion” function should soon be available on iPhone and iPad.