Future Apple Macs could finally be crumbs and dust free
Apple has put a lot of resources into ensuring that Mac keyboards, both standalone and embedded into Macbooks, offer the smoothest, most comfortable typing experience, as well as minimizing space with the thinnest profile keyboards and keys available on the market.
Since the introduction of the “Butterfly” key mechanism, championed by Apple as being leaps and bounds ahead of the existing scissors design, Apple has been able to further thin out its design down to the shortest travel possible.
Yet, one problem remains: dealing with crumbs and dust that, very much due to the extremely tight design of Apple keyboards, can’t be easily dislodged using common methods, like compressed air cans.
Worst yet, Apple keyboards aren’t designed to be taken apart easily, which means that given particularly dusty environment and enough time, any Apple keyboard may occasionally fail to register keystrokes.
Apple is apparently very aware of the problem, which the company plans to address, at least according to a new patent describing what appears to be a crumb-resistant, dust-repellent keyboard.
According to the patent titled “Ingress Prevention for Keyboards”, a number of possible designs may be implemented to prevent particles from infiltrating underneath the keys.
The illustration included with the patent shows what seems to be Apple’s previously patented, and already implemented Butterfly key design, modified to include a gasket, which is supposed to insulate the socket in which the key is cradled, from external particles.
The question, as always is whether or not we’ll see this feature being implemented in future Macs.
Historically, patents don’t automatically equal to plans of an actual product to ship anytime soon. With that said, a number of other patents revealed in recent years have been foretelling of a number of products, including the iPad Pro, the new 12 inch Macbook, and Apple Pencil, among some.
The original patent can be found at the following link: http://pdfaiw.uspto.gov/.aiw?docid=20180068808&SectionNum=1&IDKey=F0B1C5BB130C&HomeUrl=http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1%252526Sect2=HITOFF%252526d=PG01%252526p=1%252526u=%2525252Fnetahtml%2525252FPTO%2525252Fsrchnum.html%252526r=1%252526f=G%252526l=50%252526s1=%2525252220180068808%25252522.PGNR.%252526OS=DN/20180068808%252526RS=DN/20180068808#ftag=CAD4f5ae25
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