Apple’s New Touchscreen Keyboard You Can Actually Feel

Mostly everyone has made the adjustment from physical keyboard to virtual, but many of us prefer physical keyboards— something Apple seems to have realized.

The folks at Patently Apple originally reported Apple’s patent application which would allow users to feel each individual key on a virtual keyboard.

Apple’s tactile touch keyboard

These “Static Pattern Electrostatic Haptic Electrodes” are an evolved version of haptic touch as is currently available in all recent iPhones which give you physical ‘taps’ when pressing virtual buttons. This new keyboard design would deploy different voltages in different parts of the screen to give you a different feeling when pressing a key.

The patent includes multiple devices such as iPads, iPhones, and MacBooks which may employ this technology. Recently, Apple has been exploring multiple new keyboard innovations including a flexible glass keyboard which was patented earlier this year.

An individual key on Apple’s tactile touch keyboard

Although this new information is exciting, don’t expect to see it anytime soon. Companies like Apple patent things all the time which they never end up implementing into an actual product. But, this new wave of innovative keyboard patent filings by Apple is definitely a sign they’re looking into a new type of textual input device for their products, which will be sure to shake the mobile device industry.

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Jake Russo

Apple tech enthusiast

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