Apple's thought-detection tech could change life for people with disabilities

The Star

20-05-2025

The Brooklyn, New York-based bioelectronics startup Synchron has been working with Apple to add thought-control features to Apple's systems, The Wall Street Journal reports. — Reuters
You might think of Apple as the iPhone company, or the Mac company, or even the iPod company if you're old-school. But among the many identities the California-based tech giant has sported over the years, one important one has persisted, and is actually at the core of a lot of other Apple technology: accessibility.
After all, remember when Apple shook up the entire hearing aid industry by making its AirPod headphones into high-power, cheap audio aids?
Now Apple is working toward incorporating even more disability-friendly innovations into its flagship iPhone product by reportedly embracing a truly sci-fi-esque technology – implanted brain electrodes that will let disabled users control what happens on their device by thought alone. Apple is pushing to develop a new standard for this amazing, empowering tech.
The Brooklyn, New York-based bioelectronics startup Synchron has been working with Apple to add thought-control features to Apple's systems, The Wall Street Journal reports. Apple has helped introduce the venerable mouse, computer trackpads, and finally, with iPhones, full multitouch control interfaces to the public over the years. Now the new system – if it wins approval and comes to market – won't actually need to see a user make specific movements, use voice commands, or physically interact with the device.
Instead, the system works out what a user's intentions are via decoded brain signals. These are detected by electrodes inserted via a patient's artery and then threaded up into the skull so they sit right next to key parts of the brain – specifically the motor cortex. This means they're useful for people with disabilities that limit their movement.
The WSJ reported on how one particular patient, Mark Jackson, an early tester of Synchron's Stentrode implant, was able to control his iPhone, his iPad, and even his augmented reality Vision Pro headset because of a connection between the implant and Apple's systems.
Jackson, who has ALS, noted that these are early days for the tech, so it's much slower right now than using an interface like a mouse, but it's reportedly successful enough that he could control a virtual reality experience that let him feel like he was on a mountain in the Swiss Alps.
The key part of Apple's involvement is that until now some brain-implant innovations have tried to directly mimic a user moving and clicking a mouse – just like how a person without a disability would control their device. Essentially that approach represents a limited set of options, such as up, down, left, right, and click. But Apple's reportedly working on a new standard for brain-computer interfaces, set to be released this year, will allow people to do much more than this limited type of interaction allows. The standard will be useable by other developers.
Synchron's interface is different from rival systems like Elon Musk's Neuralink, the Journal explained. Synchron's system isn't implanted directly into the brain tissue, and has just 16 electrodes; the amount of brain data it gathers is low. The Neuralink system relies on thin strings of sensors embedded deeply into a users' brain, and has over a thousand electrodes, thus gathering much more data. Musk has touted the system as being transformative for people with paralysis or other disabilities – and it was so successful with its first patient that that person was able to play computer games using his mind alone to control his PC. But Musk has also said one day Neuralink systems could give everyone 'superpowers' like being able to control robot limbs using thought power.
Apple's partnership with Synchron is another step toward giving people with paralysis or other limb impairments control over their environment. The Journal explains that investment bank Morgan Stanley believes the first commercial approval for these devices (so they can be used outside of strictly-controlled medical experiments) could come as soon as 2030.
By 2030 we may expect companies like Neuralink and Synchron will make even more progress in developing their brain-sensor technology. So if all goes to plan, and Apple and other device makers embrace the new brain interface standard, in just five years time people suffering with movement-limiting disabilities or injuries will be able to demonstrate sophisticated control over their digital devices using thought alone. This tech could have the power to dramatically change people's lives. – Inc./Tribune News Service