Apple has filed for a patent (quantity US 20230259174 A1) for a “Pc With Keyboard.” It’s one in all a number of filings — and granted patents — that trace at Mac laptops with digital keyboards.
Concerning the patent submitting
The patent submitting includes a pc having a keyboard with a versatile enter floor. Within the patent submitting Apple notes that typical keyboards embrace movable keys which might be actuated by a consumer putting them with their fingers or one other object.
Nonetheless, some units embrace touchscreens on which digital keyboards could also be displayed. Customers could choose particular person keys of digital keyboards by urgent on the a part of the floor of the touchscreen that corresponds to a desired letter, character, or operate.
Apple thinks this can be a nice thought as “the floor of the touchscreen could also be flat and featureless, and will thus occupy much less area than a mechanical keyboard.”
Nonetheless, a digital keyboard would require, in fact, customers to establish the situation of the keys by sight reasonably than by really feel, which might be inconvenient. Apple’s thought is for an array of raised key areas that may be configured to detect contact inputs.
FIG. 7A exhibits a deflection curve on an array for a digital keyboard.
A bonus of such a keyboard can be a laptop computer that’s much less simply scratched. Apple is contemplating a laptop computer enclosure fashioned a minimum of partially from a clear, dielectric materials equivalent to plastic, glass, or a ceramic materials. The clear dielectric materials could type a steady or seamless enter floor which will enhance the appear and feel of the system with out having the drawbacks of some conventional system constructions, in accordance with Apple.
Abstract of the patent submitting
Right here’s Apple’s summary of the patent submitting: “A tool could embrace a show portion that features a show housing and a show a minimum of partially inside the show housing. The system can also embrace a base portion pivotally coupled to the show portion and together with a backside case, a high case coupled to the underside case and defining an array of raised key areas, and a sensing system under the highest case and configured to detect an enter utilized to a raised key area of the array of raised key areas.”
