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Apple MacBook Refresh Could Bring E-Ink Enabled Keyboard (hothardware.com)
MojoKid writes from a report via HotHardware: Apparently Apple has been working on some unique upgrades to its MacBook line, and not just underneath the hood. One of the bigger feature upgrades could actually be in the keyboard. As previously rumored, the new MacBook Pro is likely to sport a secondary touchscreen display at the top of the keyboard. It will sit in place of where the Function keys used to reside and display different graphics and icons, depending on the program that's up and running. However, according to an anonymous reddit user named "Foxconninsider," Apple's also planning to launch a new version of its Magic Keyboard -- one that takes advantage of E-Ink technology. Similar technology was developed by a start-up company named Sonder, the same company Apple is in the process of acquiring. What the tipster describes is each key having its own E Ink display. That means individual keys and/or entire rows can change based on whatever app is loaded. In any event, we should know more soon -- Apple's expected to announce new MacBook products later this month.
They used to do this back in the day with normal printed key caps, but it was unpopular because in many languages they ended up with blank keys. For example some Amiga models had two blank keys and a note in the box explaining that they were for Europe wide standardization and should be ignored.
Japanese keyboards have three extra keys on the bottom row, making the space bar really small.
Another issue is that some keys are different shapes in different countries. In the UK the return key is tall and kind of apostrophe shaped, where as in the US it is a bar.
I'm sure Apple could do it anyway, by being courageous or something and revolutionizing the keyboard by forcing everyone to use a new Apple custom layout. They will probably remove superfluous keys like Caps Lock, CTRL, ESC and J.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Except you can't, because some countries use the weird 104-key layout and the rest of the world uses the wonderful 105-key keyboard.
Well, at least they could reduce the number of physically different keyboards to about 3 - ISO, ANSI and JIS - rather than have a different model for every country with suitable key caps.
Also, maybe then we could get a patch to fix the hideous mutated chimera of UK and US layouts that is Apple's current UK keyboard (I mean, how the hell? I'd get it if they'd just taken a US keyboard and changed the "#" label to "£", but they've gone to the trouble of re-shaping the Enter key... and then still just changed the "#" label to "£", missing all the other US/UK differences....)
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Except you can't, because some countries use the weird 104-key layout and the rest of the world uses the wonderful 105-key keyboard.
Apple keyboards have 78 keys. They don't make a 100+ key keyboard any more.