A new patent application has been published this week by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The patent points at Apple’s aims towards its future MacBook devices and to get advanced backlit technology added to the keyboards. It focuses on the new keyboard designs which will have mini displays featured at each keycap. Also, each keycap will show different characters and symbols as per the patent application.
Presently available keyboards have plastic keycaps and pre-printed letters on top of it. Some laptops have features to illuminate the keycaps in the dark. Reports say that the keys will have perforations through the bottom and top layers and will be illuminated by the backlit. The patent mentions that it can generate glyphs which are adjustable and changeable in terms of letters, colours, shapes, languages, animations, symbols and so on.
It can be used to display various layouts like QWERTY, Colemak or QWERTZ and so on. It can also be used to reflect a range of keyboard languages and standards. LED or OLED underneath the keycaps as the source of light is another one of the implementation ideas mentioned in the patent. All of these have a single ultimate goal to increase the range of functionality of the keyboards and make languages and symbols handy.
Some mock images were also attached with the Apple file and the application also explains the usages and construction of the same. The materials to be used have also been mentioned such as metals including aluminium. Apple is constantly working towards making the typing experience more convenient and advanced and introducing them in their upcoming devices. As of now there is no guarantee if this technology will be developed or not or when exactly it will be released as it is still at the very early stages of development.
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