New Apple Patent Imagines an OLED Screen As a Keyboard For MacBooks (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted Apple a patent titled "dual display equipment with enhanced visibility and suppressed reflections." The documentation for what is patent number 9,904,502 outlines a device that would use a second display as a dynamic keyboard. Two implementations of this design are described in the patent application, according to Patently Apple. The first utilizes a permanent hinge, while the second allows the screen to be removed and used separately, along the lines of Microsoft's Surface Pro range and other two-in-one computers. The patent documentation makes it clear that the implementation is not intended as an accessory that would allow two iPads to be paired together, with one serving as the keyboard. Additionally, illustrations associated with the application explicitly state that one screen is an OLED display, while the other is an LCD. A double-display set-up could provide easy access to a different keyboard layout language, context-sensitive controls, or even a large sketching surface to use in conjunction with something like an Apple Pencil. However, that flexibility would come at the cost of the traditional typing experience offered by a mechanical keyboard.

Comments

Seems like evolution of the TouchBar?

[SuperKendall]

An external OLED screen you use as a configurable keyboard basically describes the TouchBar.

Maybe Apple means to make a larger version of it for desktops - one of my biggest gripes is that I actually LIKE the TouchBar and the features it offers across different apps, but I can't get used to them because I often use an external keyboard with my laptop in clamshell mode, and so I never really get used to use the TouchBar as there is no external keyboard that has one.

Re:Seems like evolution of the TouchBar?

[fluffernutter]

It would make a terrible keyboard

Then why did they use it to replace so many functions of the keyboard? There weren't enough keyboard keys as it was. They should have kept the keybaord keys and then added the touchbar on top if they wanted.

Real power users use external keyboards.

I'm on a computer all the time. I'll be damned if I'll be sitting at a desk my entire life. It defeats the point of getting a laptop.

Re:Seems like evolution of the TouchBar?

[dromgodis]

Real power users use external keyboards.

Real power users don't tell other power users how to use their power.

Re:Seems like evolution of the TouchBar?

[berj]

it takes multiple presses now to get the same thing done, such as volume up and down.

you need to change the setup on your touch bar.

I've got mine set up to allow single-touch adjustments of volume and screen brightness. You just touch and hold the button and then drag to adjust. Couldn't be simpler.

There's room for 4 static buttons on the right side of the touchbar that don't change regardless of app focus (unless you bring up the old-style function keys with "fn"). No matter the app that has focus, those four buttons will stay there. For me I've got:

brightness adjust (single button, hold and drag for up and down)
volume adjust (single button, hold and drag for up and down)
mute volume (single tap)
lock screen

But you've got many other options to suit your specific needs.

So, on balance, this is better (for me, anyways) than the old style keys:

1) the functions I use most (the four I put in the static part of the control strip above) are always active and always in the same place.
2) I need to interact *less* to adjust screen volume and brightness since the old-style keys couldn't do the hold-and-drag adjustments that touchbar can do
3) I can control which apps get full access to old-style function keys. With the old style function keys I needed to set *every* app to have full access to function keys and then hold "fn" to adjust volume, brightness, etc. Now I can set only Vim and Terminal and a couple other apps to have direct access to the function keys (without holding fn) and every other app gets the control strip. The old way is all-or-nothing. Now I get per-application control.

Hopefully when I update my laptop in 4 or 5 years they'll have put haptic feedback into the touch bar which is the thing I feel is the most lacking. I do also wish they'd have an external keyboard with the touchbar so I can get the same functionality on my workstation.

Re:Seems like evolution of the TouchBar?

[AmiMoJo]

Many keyboards have a simple volume up, volume down and mute key arrangement. That's ideal because you generally only want to adjust the volume slowly and over a short range.

Sliders for volume are not a great idea, because one slip and you get blasted with loud, ear damaging, speaker-destroying sound. That's why an decent hifi equipment has a fairly stiff volume knob, or requires a lot of turns to make big changes.

NO!

[Kenja]

DO NOT WANT!

Typing would be a nightmare

[imgod2u]

I already have trouble with the low-profile keyboards on the new MacBooks.

A touchscreen would make it even worse.

Re:Typing would be a nightmare

[maglor_83]

Exactly what I came here to say. As if their existing keyboards aren't bad enough.

Touchscreen keyboard...

[LynnwoodRooster]

Soon to be followed with iOS Pro as the only OS available for the Macbook. The iPhonification of the Mac line is nearly complete!

Remember the Optimus Maximus keyboard?

[cjellibebi]

At least that was a proper keyboard with pressable keys and all. Each key had it's own display.

Nintendo DS?

[tepples]

The first 21 claims are based on a claim of the device having two display separated by a hinge.

What in the claims distinguishes this invention from Nintendo DS?

Re:Nintendo DS?

[Theaetetus]

The first 21 claims are based on a claim of the device having two display separated by a hinge.

What in the claims distinguishes this invention from Nintendo DS?

Here's claim 1:

1. Electronic equipment, comprising:
first and second housings that rotate relative to each other about a hinge axis;
a first display in the first housing that emits light; and
a second display in the second housing that emits light,
wherein the first display has a first linear polarizer and a wave plate, wherein the second display has a second linear polarizer, wherein the light emitted from the first display passes through the first linear polarizer then the wave plate before being emitted, and wherein the wave plate adjusts how the light emitted from the first display is polarized to suppress reflections of the light emitted from the first display off of the second display when the angle between the first and second housings is non-zero.

I'd venture to guess that everything after that first 'wherein' distinguishes this from the DS.

Patentable ?

[DrYak]

How did they actually manage to make this patentable ?

There have been countless variations of this "software is controlling the faces of the keys" since forever.
  - Entire second touchscreens working as a keyboard.
  - individual LCD, eInk or OLED screens behind every key (Art Lebedev Studio's Optimus Keyboard was attracting lots of attention back in the days).
  - whole LCDs/OLED screens behind the whole keyboard (what Art Lebedev eventually settled with to make it less expensive to produce than the earlier models)
  - laser projecting a keyboard on any surface
etc.

How the fuck did Apple manage to file a patent about a horse that has been beaten to death during the past 15 years ?

(Reads TFA,...)

Ah, okay. They have "improved" the technology by adding polarized filter, because glare can be a problem with the kind of glossy surface they use.
Yay for innovation !

Re:That's why I like it

[fluffernutter]

At most you have to tap away custom features to reveal them again

So how does this refute my statement that it was easier with a dedicated key?? If I'm in the middle of working on something, I don't need to be groping around for the volume.