Making the case for a MacBook with a trackpad keyboard

Apple “Zero Travel” keyboard patent has been making the rounds lately, as a most outlandish method of typing on a laptop. As the patent details, the Zero Travel design is basically one giant trackpad replacing the entire area of a MacBook’s keyboard.

This method makes the entire keyboard layout, completely programmable, allowing different configurations to be loaded as needed. This would include international keyboard layouts, utility configurations (numeric pads), and toggles that enable punctuation, special characters, uppercase/lowercase letters, and special navigation keys for media players and even games.

The one giant caveat is that completely flattening a keyboard on a MacBook would turn the typing experience into a nightmare at best, as human fingers still require tactile feedback from a keyboard, to be able to type efficiently. Even touch-typists, who have gotten accustomed to typing on an iPad’s virtual keyboard, would go for a physical keyboard every day of the week.

With that said, Apple might have a solution for this problem, as outlined in a little-known patent published in 2011, titled “Keystroke tactility arrangement on a smooth touch surface”.

It’s important to remember that patent filings are usually far from describing an actual product, and may or may not be part of an actual product, in the future, however, if this older patent describes how touchscreens can be designed to provide feedback in the form of physical modifications to the touchscreen surface. For instance, a virtual keyboard on a touchscreen would feature actual three-dimensional embossing on the display itself, with the ability to push down buttons as if they were physical ones, for a more realistic experience.

Should this patent be coupled with the Zero Travel keyboard, a “MacPad” could be in the cards, with the added bonus of rendering future MacBook, almost paper-thin and just as lightweight.