An patent application from Apple has emerged for shoes which could track the wearers activity through embedded sensors.
The patent, which was filed in July 2012, is fully titled Shoe Wear-Out Sensor, Body-Bar Sensing System, Unitless Activity Assessment And Associated Methods.
Essentially, the idea is that smart shoes could let the wearer know when the shoe begins to wear out, via a speaker or LED display. Another application for the technology – and perhaps the more obviously useful one – is measuring daily exercise. The patent gives the examples of monitoring a childs activity, or checking whether an injured leg is being used enough to help it recover. 
Its a bit of an unusual step for the company, which has settled into a yearly rhythm of iPhone and iPad updates, but it could be a way for Apple get to a foot in the door, so to speak, in the M2M space.
