A patent filed by Apple and recently discovered by UnwiredView titled “Radial Menus” (PDF link) gives some very interesting fodder to the Apple rumor mill today.

Apple says in the patent application that “[t]he invention is directed towards the presentation of the menu or toolbar options in a graphical user interface. Specifically, the invention is directed towards presenting these options in a radial form”. (Page 1 at the top)

So you may be wondering what exactly does Apple believe this revolutionary invention will do for menu structure?

Well, Apple intends their invention to include:

(i) non-uniform spacing of menu items, [Ed: As you can see in the image above],

(ii) the use of shading or highlighting within a region associated with an item to indicate the present selectability of the item,

(iii) the use of radial gestures for opening sub-menus and the subsequent display of the sub-menu

Is this patent application a definite indication of a shift in the iOS experience to come in future incarnations of the iPhone, iPad, or Mac OS X? Not necessarily. Anyone who knows the technology industry knows that a company patenting something doesn’t necessarily mean it is going to be used in a product. This is just a concept right now and something that Apple is probably playing around with in their R&D Labs but it doesn’t mean it is going to be incorporated into any new Apple products.

More info:

For the entire patent application check it out here as a 2.7MB PDF [LINK]

Info taken from UnwiredView [LINK]