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Apple Patents Keyboard That Knows What You'll Type

Posted by samzenpus on from the future-board dept.

fysdt writes "Another day, another patent, this one from Apple for a very curious sort of keyboard that might be easier to type on because it'll know in advance which keys your fingertips want to hit. No, not a device built by Emmett 'Doc' Brown (as far as we know, anyway), or pulled back through time in a TARDIS—just a very special type of board with tiny inbuilt tactile sensors capable of detecting what your spider-formation fingers are about to tap before they actually do."

17 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. Errr... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    It detects fingers on keys before you press the key.

    Thats like predicting which way a car will turn at a junction by looking at it's indicator lights.

    1. Re:Errr... by kat_skan · · Score: 5, Funny

      That's the nice thing about Apple products though. If they don't do what you wanted, you can safely assume that what you wanted was just wrong.

    2. Re:Errr... by shadowfaxcrx · · Score: 3, Funny

      asdfjk;asdjk;lasdfjk;ladsfjk;lSo what happens if you rest your fingers on the keys between typing?asdfjkl;asdfjklasdfjkl;

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    3. Re:Errr... by jpapon · · Score: 2

      Because there's a human in the loop with keyboards; this is not the case for a processor, except in the very rare case (in terms of the processors time scale) that the user affects what is arriving at the processor. For your analogy to work, a human would have to be inputting each command individually to the processor... and the human would have to correct the processor each time it made a false prediction too.

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      -- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
  2. Judging by the... by Reverand+Dave · · Score: 2

    epically inept word suggestions from my T9 phone, this will produce some awesomely funny posts.

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    1. Re:Judging by the... by dwillden · · Score: 2

      Hmm maybe I'll run out and reserve damnyoupsychickeyboard.com

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  3. Great! by DWMorse · · Score: 5, Funny

    I hop it work breaded than predictive testing.
    __
    Sent from my iPhone

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  4. What's the point? by hawguy · · Score: 2

    I don't see how a little blast of air is going to help me type -- and having the key move by itself when I press it seems like it would remove the tactile feel that lets me know that I pressed it -- if I wanted an on-screen keyboard with no tactile feel, I'd use one. I use a real keyboard because my fingers like to know when they press a key.

    Unless key prediction gets *much* better than what I've seen on my phone, it seems that I'd quickly learn to ignore any hints given by the keyboard since more times than not, it would be wrong.

    1. Re:What's the point? by Altus · · Score: 2

      Of course mechanical feedback is nice, but the idea here, I suspect, is to be able to have tactile feedback that is as effective as mechanical feedback but in a package that is far far smaller. the thinner keyboards get the less mechanical feedback you get from them and the smaller devices get the smaller their keyboard have to be. This isn't to make keyboards better... its to make them smaller without making them suck more. Theoretically this might give good tactile feedback on keyboard that is simply a flat surface with no moving parts, just touch sensors.

      Also, the predictive stuff isn't based on what you typed last but based on sensors detecting your fingers heading toward a key, so it should work very reliably.

      I'm not sure if this would work well enough or not, but I would be curious to try it.

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  5. Complexity, failure, etc... by alispguru · · Score: 2

    Keyboards are electromechanical nightmares anyway, so there would have to be a BIG advantage to anything that made them more mechanically complex.

    Consider that the failure modes on this would make individual keys have different sensitivity when typing.

    Bleah. Count me out until they've had a few years in harsh environments.

    BTW, here is another link to a similar story - the submission seems slashdotted as I type this.

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    To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
  6. Autocorrect by bradgoodman · · Score: 2

    Oh, come ON! The last thing we need is my work PC doing the same kind of auto-correct nonsense that my iPhone does! You really need it on an iPhone where typing is cumbersome, however, I believe this would slow you DOWN on a PC. The reason is, typing becomes quick, intuitive and "muscle-memory" driven. To have to react to the computer (or keyboard) doing things for you as you are in the middle of typing a word would completely - not just slow you down - sort of throw a stumbling block in front of you. Granted, you could ignore it, or deal with it after the word is done - however, this wouldn't be any better than turning it off - or doing what spell-correction does today.

  7. Quoting the immortal words from Star Trek III... by Lead+Butthead · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Quoting the immortal words of Montgomery "Scotty" Scott: "The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain."
    A keyboard should be just that, a keyboard. All other stuff in this patent is just overthinking the plumbing.

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  8. Re:Quoting the immortal words from Star Trek III.. by 19thNervousBreakdown · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yep, the keyboards we have now are perfect, and there's no reason to incrementally improve them. Why, when it comes time to use something better, it'll be okay that it's completely different because we'll all just jump to that en-masse. I mean, what, is some totally new input system going to have unforeseen consequences? Hah! That'll be the day!

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  9. Re:Quoting the immortal words from Star Trek III.. by Stormwatch · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We don't need a newer, better kind of keyboard. We need an older, better kind of keyboard!

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    Circumcision is child abuse.
  10. Re:Quoting the immortal words from Star Trek III.. by Stormwatch · · Score: 2

    That, and the tactile/auditory feedback. When you've pressed a key, you KNOW you've pressed a key.

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    Circumcision is child abuse.
  11. Re:Quoting the immortal words from Star Trek III.. by bughunter · · Score: 2

    I've never understood the appeal of the Model M.

    Then you've never used one to perform many kilocharacters of data entry by touch typing... The keys' springiness and tactile feed back makes it a superior high-volume input for a speed typist.

    And there is also the nostalgia, granted. But there really has been no other keyboard tech that provides the same clear, unmistakeable confirmation that yes, your key was pressed.

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  12. Re:Quoting the immortal words from Star Trek III.. by LeonPierre · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Oh god, not this again.

    http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/keyboards.html

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    "If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet"