Last October Apple discontinued the 13-inch MacBook Pro, the final model with a Touch Bar. However, I’d love to have a standalone keyboard with a Touch Bar (which, I know, some people detest) and backlighting.
A March 23, 2023 Apple patent (number 11,281,305) for a “keyboard with touch sensor and illumination” suggests Apple is at least considering such a device.
Apple added the Touch Bar to its laptops in 2016, specifically the 13 and 15-inch MacBook Pros. The hardware feature was introduced as a sort of 21st-century replacement to the familiar row of function keys that exist on almost all laptop and desktop computers. It was a controversial feature that Apple removed when it debuted its 2021 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros.
In the patent, Apple notes that some keyboards have trackpads to allow a user to supply touch input. Due to space considerations and other constraints, it can be difficult or impossible to provide desired touch sensor functionality to components such as keyboards. Apple’s idea is for a backlight keyboard provided with overlapping touch sensor circuitry to receive touch input from a user. Which, to me, sounds like a TouchBar feature.
What’s more, in June 2022 Apple filed for a patent that hints at a Touch Bar keyboard on a laptop that has Apple Pencil support. I doubt that we’ll see the Touch Bar on another Mac laptop, but a standalone Touch Bar keyboard with Apple Pencil support would be sweet. The patent filing involves input devices incorporating a stylus that’s removably mounted to a keyboard or similar device.
Summary of the patent
Here’s Apple’s abstract of the patent with some technical details: “A keyboard may be provided that has keys overlapped by a touch sensor. The keyboard may have key sensor circuitry for monitoring switching in the keys for key press input. The keyboard may also have touch sensor circuitry such as capacitive touch sensor circuitry that monitors capacitive electrodes in the touch sensor for touch sensor input such as multitouch gesture input.
“The keyboard may include an outer layer of fabric that overlaps the keys. The fabric may have openings that are arranged to form alphanumeric characters. Light sources may emit light that passes through the openings and illuminates the alphanumeric characters. The touch sensor may have signal lines that are not visible through the openings. The signal lines may be transparent, may be covered by a diffuser, or may circumvent the openings so that they do not overlap.”
I would like wired extended keyboard with Touch ID.