Apple Patent Filing Points To a Keyboard With No Keys (digitaltrends.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Digital Trends: Apple's patent, titled "Configurable Force-Sensitive Input Structure for Electronic Devices," was filed in September 2015 and was recently made available to the public on April 7th. It states that this all-in-one input interface consists of a metal contact layer, and a sense layer combined with a drive layer mounted underneath. According to the patent, the sense and drive layers detect a force exerted on the metal contact layer. This is accomplished by using an array of pixels on the sense and drive layers that determine an input location when active pixels are aligned on both layers. The user then gets a response to his or her action thanks to a haptic feedback module and a light guide layer that lights up the "keys" through extremely tiny holes in the metal surface. The components of the force-input sensitive "structure" are enclosed within the device's chassis; thus the only exposed portion is the contact surface itself. In a provided drawing, the illustrated notebook shows four distinct input areas on the surface. However, the patent states that the device can have any number of input areas defined on the contact portion.

Comments

Only problem...

[Anonymous Coward]

... this is really only good for hunt-and-peckers. I already have serious trouble using laptops with touchpad since my hovering thumb too often gets mistaken for a touch. Combine with focus-follows-pointer and soonish I'm ready to throw the entire thing out the nearest window. So I really do prefer keys and a trackpoint, thanks. Now if you turn the entire surface into a touch-sensitive deal, a touch-typist will have ten fingers hovering over it, which'll likely cause all sorts of noise, distracting from getting work done. So this really is only good for people who don't do that. Try and combine touch-typing with not-hovering and we might even see another wave of RSI. At any rate, if touch-typing is out then the average touch-typist's WPM rate will take a hit. But nevermind that. All hail apple's newfound coolness. Welp, very innovative, apple boys.

Re:Hate it

[alvinrod]

I think it's even worse than that and the lack of give contributes to RSI injuries. I absolutely hate typing on the current crop of Apple keyboards and find that doing so for extended periods isn't good for my hands. I switched to using mechanical keyboards some years ago which are worlds better than anything else you can find in terms of how comfortable they are to use for prolonged periods. I don't know if there's been any significant study to verify that, but personally for me I've found that they're great. Strangely enough, Apple used to make a really good mechanical keyboard, but they quit doing so some time ago in order to make everything thinner, needlessly so in the case of their desktop products.

Form over Function

[fyngyrz]

The really thin keyboard of the current Macbook laptop, which has reduced vertical play, is already one step too far for me in the lack of adequate feedback.

I can't even use my not-very-new macbook without an external keyboard. The provided surface is not designed for people to actually type on. Just to poke a key now and then, or input 140 characters of (cough) insight. Extended use is incredibly annoying. Hence... external keyboard.

But you know, it has to be thinner. Form takes priority over function every time with Apple.

Look at the nightmare the new mac pro represents. The inability to host any drive or ram expansion, the doesn't fit-anywhere trashcan, the desk full of warts and theftable drives and widgets if you want it to do anything more than just sit there stock... awful. Form over function.

That's why I exclusively buy used Macs now. Where they have gone, I have no interest in following.