Apple looking into ‘virtual keyboard animation’ for iPads, iPhones

Apple has filed for a patent (number 202000004416) for “virtual keyboard animation” that could mean enhanced virtual keyboards for the iPad and iPhone.

In the patent filing, Apple says that tablets, smartphones and other touchscreen devices typically emulate mechanical keyboard functionality by displaying a keyboard image beneath a featureless touch-sensitive surface, compensating for the lack of tactile feel by providing visual feedback when a key is selected. A common “virtual keyboard” technique, for example, is to display the character associated with the selected key directly above and adjacent the key as it is selected. Apple says that, unfortunately, such visual feedback is often obscured by a user’s hands, a problem aggravated by recent advances that enable a user’s hands/fingers to be rested on the touchscreen (over the virtual keyboard) without unintended key activation. The tech giant wants to change this.

Here’s the summary of the patent filing: “A keyboard image is displayed on the touchscreen of a computing device, with images of individual keys of the keyboard being rendered in respective locations on the touchscreen. User contact with the touchscreen is detected at a location corresponding to a first key of the keyboard image and interpreted as an intentional key selection with respect the first key. An animation is thereafter displayed on the touchscreen in response to the key selection, the animation including a visual effect emanating from the touchscreen location corresponding to the first key and moving substantially away from the keyboard image.”