Apple has filed for yet another patent involving a Mac with a virtual keyboard. This one is number US 20240370061 A1 and is simply titled “Computer With Keyboard.”
About the patent filing
The patent involves a laptop having a light-transmissive cover and a display adjacent or partially surrounding a keyboard of the device. As Apple points out in the patent, laptops may include a base with a keyboard and a trackpad, and a display that is hinged to the base.
Most traditional trackpads are also visually static in appearance and tactile feel. Apple is interested in systems and techniques for a laptop having a touch-sensitive cover and a display that produces a dynamic graphical output and may extend over the palm rest region of a keyboard.
The tech giant also thinks that traditional laptop keyboards may lack flexibility or adaptability and may permanently indicate the presence of the input device within the computing system. One possibility of overcoming such limitations is a virtual keyboard.
Summary of the patent filing
Here’s Apple’s abstract of the patent filing: “A device may include a display portion that includes a display housing and a display at least partially within the display housing. The device may also include a base portion pivotally coupled to the display portion and including a bottom case, a top case coupled to the bottom case and defining an array of raised key regions, and a sensing system below the top case and configured to detect an input applied to a raised key region of the array of raised key regions.”
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