Apple files patent for a customizable keyboard that allows users to switch keys

Apple has been granted a patent on a customizable keyboard that would allow users to quickly swap English letters for a new alphabet.

The patent, officially titled ‘Electronic devices that have keys with coherent fiber bundles’, also explains how the gaming keyboard could be modified, where each key would ‘correspond to particular actions of the game’.

You could also reconfigure passwords to address accessibility issues or specific work habits.

The tech giant unveiled the theoretical accessory just below the cable: the keyboard received a green light on December 29, the last day of 2020 to receive approval from the US Patent and Trademark Office.

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Apple has obtained a patent for a ‘reconfigurable’ keyboard, and each key has a digital readout that shows its current function. The technology could be used to quickly convert English letters into another alphabet, Cyrillic or Hebrew, for example.

The presentation, originally reported by Patently Apple, includes a description of how keyboard keys could have ‘a associated key display’ connected to ‘control circuitry on the keyboard’ via a ‘coherent fiber bundle’.

According to the patent, each key would be ‘formed from a fiber optic plate’ with ‘first and second opposing surfaces’.

Each key would function as an adjustable digital display and could be made from materials like glass, ceramic, metal, polymer, or even crystalline materials like sapphire.

The technology could be used to quickly convert English letters into another alphabet, Cyrillic or Hebrew, for example.

Each key would function as an adjustable digital display and could be made of glass, ceramic, metal, polymer, or even crystalline materials like sapphire.

It would also be a boon for players, ‘to temporarily convert[ing] a standard keyboard on a gaming keyboard in which the keys correspond to particular actions in the game ‘.

Since users would need to know what the keys on their keyboard represent, Apple suggests that ‘it may also be convenient to provide the user with visual feedback indicating the current state of each key (e.g., whether the key corresponds to an alphanumeric character or a game function, etc.).

“This can be achieved by providing keys on a keyboard with dynamic labels,” the document explains. “Dynamic labels can be generated using dynamically reconfigurable label display components, such as organic light-emitting diode displays with pixel arrays, electrophoretic displays with pixel arrays, or other pixel arrays (as examples).”

Drawings shipped with the application indicate that the reconfigurable keyboard could be integrated into a Macbook laptop or used as a standalone keyboard with a desktop computer.

According to the presentation, the proposed technology could also temporarily turn a standard keyboard into a gaming keyboard, ‘in which the keys correspond to particular actions in the game’

The technology is a natural successor to the Touch Bar, a touch screen located above the number keys that were introduced on MacBook Pro keyboards in 2016.

The bar is designed to allow users to swipe instead of pressing traditional function keys, but it can be adapted to perform many more tasks.

Apple files hundreds of patents each year, and most are never converted to commercial products.

A presentation by May posited an experimental design for a flexible laptop made from a single piece of material.

This theoretical MacBook would bend smoothly like a stack of papers instead of using the rigid mechanical hinge design of most existing notebooks.

In November, Apple was granted a patent to add Force Touch capability to the MacBook’s Touch Bar, allowing the keyboard to perform different functions based on how hard a user presses the bar.

It also won a patent for an external keyboard that could be magnetically attached.