Apple has long been on a mission to make MacBooks thinner and thinner, and a new patent granted today describes how a retractable keyboard can help.
Previous patents suggest that Apple’s long-term goal is a fully solid-state keyboard, which uses electrostatic charges to allow users to “feel” the keys so that continued typing is possible, and tactile engines to simulate keystrokes for the feel of a physical keyboard …
This patent does not go that far, but it does allow Apple to make laptops thinner while maintaining the physical movement of the keys.
Apple explains in the background that physical keyboards make laptops thicker than would be the case with touch keys.
Keyboards can include keys with keys that move when pressed by a user, and the movement of the key can trigger a connected device to perform some action or function. As another example, portable electronic devices, such as smartphones, may include buttons with trigger members that move when pressed and cause the electronic device to perform some action or function. Due to the movement of the keys or other actuating members, input devices with moving components can be larger than input devices that do not have moving components.
What Apple proposes is to use a magnetic system to allow the keys to function normally when in use, but retract them into the bottom case when the laptop is closed.
The keyboard may include a substrate and a key mechanism comprising a key cover support mechanism, a key cover supported by the key cover support mechanism, a ferromagnetic component attached to the key cover support mechanism and a system selectively magnetizable magnet. The selectively magnetizable magnet system includes a magnetizable material and a coil configured to selectively magnetize and demagnetize the magnetizable material.
The key cover can be bistable (that is, capable of being held in either position without external force); the position of the key cover may vary depending on whether the magnetizable material is magnetized or demagnetized.
At first glance, this would seem to describe an electromagnet system, which would involve the energy being used to hold the keys in the stowed position. However, the patent makes it clear that this would not be the case: Apple would instead use materials that require an initial application of energy to magnetize them and they remain magnetized when the power is cut.
When the magnetizable material is magnetized, the magnetizable material can produce a persistent magnetic field that is maintained without a continuous application of electrical energy to the coil.
Apple provides aluminum nickel cobalt iron and chromium cobalt iron as examples of materials suitable for use on a retractable keyboard.
Of course, the usual patent disclaimer applies – Apple patents several things it never brings to the market – but just the thought of a new MacBook keyboard design is enough to make me a little nervous …
Via Patently Apple
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