Published this week were 44 recently-granted patents for Apple, which are bound to provide many technology observers and commentators with considerable food for thought. We are especially intrigued by one of these patents detailing Apple’s invention of a dual purpose keyboard called a “fusion keyboard”. Could this appear on a new MacBook in the foreseeable future?
This patent, which the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has recorded as U.S. Patent No. 9,041,652, shows the keyboard with mechanical keys with attached touch sensors. Someone using the keyboard could generate different outcomes depending on exactly how much they depress the keys. This could enable the user to press keys to activate certain functions that they could have previously needed to take their hands away from the keyboard to use.
As Apple has recently spent a lot of money on developing its Force Touch trackpad for the MacBook, the company could now consider the concept of the fusion keyboard redundant and so abandon it. It remains possible, however, that Apple could use the fusion keyboard to help decrease the size of future MacBooks. The ‘MacBook Mini’? Let’s wait and see…
