‘Next generation MacBook will have Touch Bar keys with OLED’
Apple has filed a new patent showing a MacBook with Touch Bar keys. These are made of OLED. In this article you can read everything about this patent.
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Apple applies for new patent for keyboard
In the future, MacBooks may have a keyboard made of small screens. Behind these ‘Touch Bar keys’ are small OLED screens that adapt to what you are currently doing. At least, that’s what we read in a patent from Apple on Patently Apple.
What are the advantages of such a screen and where did Apple’s keyboards go wrong in the past? And what material are these MacBook Touch Bar keys possibly made of?
Perforated Touch Bar keys in MacBook
So Apple is far from finished innovating the MacBook’s keyboard. The company previously failed with the butterfly keyboard and the Touch Bar in the MacBook Pro 2016 was also not received with much enthusiasm. Now Apple is experimenting with buttons with mini-displays very similar to Touch Bar keys in the upcoming MacBook.
The patent describes a keyboard where each key is perforated. So we see mini-holes that could let the light from the OLED screen underneath pass through. A kind of Touch Bar, but for each individual key. That way, your greasy fingers won’t get the screen dirty.
The advantage of this is that each key can change per software. When you open Pages, you will most likely just see the letters in their usual place. In programs such as ProTools or Photoshop, all shortcuts are then highlighted. The keyboard could also, for example, switch faster between our Latin script and Chinese characters.
Striking: Touch Bar keys may not be made of plastic
The Apple patent also shows something interesting. The Touch Bar keys of the future MacBook must be made of aluminum. Now we (still) tap plastic keys all the time. Whether these two innovations will actually see the light of day remains to be seen. Apple is filing patents all the time. However, most of them we never see appear.
Nevertheless, we are optimistic: the technology is indeed possible in practice. In 2007, Art.Lebedev Studio already introduced the Optimus Maximus keyboard. This already used OLED on the separate keys, but had one major drawback.
Due to the high price of the technology and materials, the keyboard cost a whopping $1600 in the year of release. You now pay that for a long time for an entire MacBook. We see that today these costs have decreased. However, this does not automatically mean that we should assume perforated aluminum Touch Bar keys in the new MacBook. Of course you can always hope!
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