Apple Patents Switch-Less Force Touch Keyboard, Could Lead to Thinner Macs

Biased Opinion · November 5, 2015

it wont make it feel any better to type on than any other touch keyboard. The lack of travel is annoying and tactile feedback no matter how good will not help that.

raphidy · November 5, 2015

No travel time means faster typing technically. If they could do a surface that resemble the keyboards now, I guess this could take off. If its plain glass, no curves or bumps f and j, it'll be hard for consumers. Also needs a immediate feedback from touch keyboard.

NickTheMajin · November 5, 2015

on a glass surface your fingers gradually move from there original position the bump and curve on keys is there to stop this happening

This is not something that happens to me. I can type very fast on a touch keyboard. The only thing preventing me from typing fast on my Nexus 10 is the slowness of the device. It lags behind my key presses.

But people are taking this out of context. I'm not replacing my k70 with a touch screen Apple keyboard. I type over 120wpm on a mechanical keyboard and I plateau around 85-90 on an iPad. The keyboard in the current MacBook is awful. If Apple can work similar magic that they do in the MacBooks trackpad with the keyboard it would be awesome. I'm pretty sure 90% of you have never experienced what force touch feels like.

Also with the MacBook, they still have a recessed area for the touchpad. What's to say they wouldn't make indentations for the keys as well?

79wjd · November 5, 2015

This is not something that happens to me. I can type very fast on a touch keyboard. The only thing preventing me from typing fast on my Nexus 10 is the slowness of the device. It lags behind my key presses.

But people are taking this out of context. I'm not replacing my k70 with a touch screen Apple keyboard. I type over 120wpm on a mechanical keyboard and I plateau around 85-90 on an iPad. The keyboard in the current MacBook is awful. If Apple can work similar magic that they do in the MacBooks trackpad with the keyboard it would be awesome. I'm pretty sure 90% of you have never experienced what force touch feels like.

Also with the MacBook, they still have a recessed area for the touchpad. What's to say they wouldn't make indentations for the keys as well?

A keyboard is still different than a trackpad. Force touch can work on a trackpad (debatably just as good as a normal switch), but on a keyboard I see it as alleviating an issue more than fixing it -- i.e. I can see it improving the typing experience of a touch screen, but not get it anywhere near the level of an actual keyboard (even a bad one).

I personally have used the force touch trackpad for a bit (not long enough to draw any meaningful conclusions -- maybe like 5-10 minutes) and I personally don't really like it....I much prefer the non force-touch trackpad (but that could easily change with more extended use).

I'm thinking about this being used on an iPad more than I am the Macbook, in which case, indentations wouldn't work (for obvious reasons)....although, there is always that case (was it ever produced?) that added bubbles for each key, so they could do something like that combined with force touch.... On a macbook, I feel like I'd still much rather have a keyboard (even a butterfly switch -- which I haven't used, so I have no comment about that) than a touch keyboard.