When Apple's latest patent on displays with transparent apertures actually makes it into future iPhones and MacBooks, that camera cutout you hate so much is likely to go out of style.

This is because the patent presents a way to embed a camera under an electronic display without compromising the quality of the display or the images and video captured by the camera.

The patent itself (patent number 11823620, brought to our attention by Patently Apple) describes a method whereby an electronic device with a display has a selected "non-pixel area" (aka " transparent window in the display"), which details how the display is designed to have a "transparent window in the display.

The patent contains many technical details on how this can be accomplished, much of which is It all boils down to this.

Apple also outlines how to design and implement "uniformity correction circuitry" to help maintain image quality and brightness across areas of the display where pixels have been removed to let light through.

What is immediately intriguing about this patent is that it appears to be aimed at eliminating notches, including the camera arrays on the latest iPhones and MacBooks, but is not limited to those devices.

As is the case with many patents, this patent suggests that this method of creating a transparent window within a display could be applied to any device with a screen, including laptops, tablets, smartphones, watches, gaming devices, or devices with a "glasses shape" or "helmet-shaped housing," including It is widely claimed that it can be applied to all types of electronic devices.

But that is pure speculation, and it is difficult to look at the patent details and see how it might apply to many modern Apple devices other than the iPhone or MacBook.

Perhaps one day we will see an Apple Watch with a camera embedded under the display, but I am not holding my breath.