Apple's keyboard of the future might not have keys at all, according to a patent discovered by Patently Apple that was originally filed by a team of Apple inventors in the first quarter of 2010.
Housed in a case made from glass, metal, and plastic, this virtual keyboard would use acoustic pulse recognition and pressure-sensitive piezo-electric sensors to detect finger taps on the flat surface. These sensors would also be used to tell the difference between when a user is deliberately selecting a key or when his or her hands are just resting on the keyboard. There would also be LED indicators that would illuminate the keyboard in darker settings.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs is already notoriously anti-buttons, but it seems this aversion could apply to keys, too. Back in January, it was rumored that the iPhone and iPad would lose their home button in favor of multi-touch features when Apple upgraded its mobile operating system to iOS 4.3. But the platform has since been upgraded several times, and iOS 5 is on the horizon with no talk of Apple eschewing that little black circle on its iDevices.
Jobs has apparently had a bias against buttons since he first went to work for Apple in 1978, according to a 2007 Wall Street Journal profile. When Apple was producing the original Macintosh computer, Jobs didn't even want to include the "up," "down," "left," and "right" keys on the machine's keyboard. He also allegedly wanted the original iPhone to come sans buttons.
Jobs might get his button-less future with this patent, though Apple holds a treasure trove of futuristic technology patents that might never come to market.
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