Apple’s New MacBook Multi-Touch Fusion Keyboard Might Make The Track Pad Obsolete

The Apple MacBook will not require its users to navigate the screen with a track pad. According to a patent that was published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday, Apple will be launching a new keyboard, called Fusion keyboard, which has keys that may be used both for inserting characters as well as deploying touch gestures.

This dual purpose keyboard features touch sensors that have been purposely overlaid on mechanical keys that can depress up to two more levels. This allows users to gain multi-touch gesture control, as well as conventional keystroke entry without having to take their hands off of the device, according to Apple Insider.

Each of the keyboard’s keys has two pre-installed levels. Different functions can be performed depending on how hardly the key is pressed. For instance, pressing the key relatively softly will access the first level, which could be set to input a certain character, while pressing it much harder will access the second level, which can also be set to register a single mouse click.

Apple’s U.S. Patent No. 9,041,642 has touch sensitive key surfaces that allows the keyboard to detect the gestures of the user’s fingers, such as swipes and taps – pretty much like how the MacBook’s touch pad functions. For instance, by merely moving their fingers softly over an array of touch sensitive keys, users can perform a variety of functions like zoom, scroll, select, point, click, and drag.

With the new Fusion keyboard, laptops no longer have to make track pads, especially since they take up a huge amount of space on the laptop. Now, track pad-less laptops have a smaller overall size. Either that or there is a bigger space for the keyboard, which means that the keys are not as closely scrunched together as they used to.

What makes the Fusion keyboard even better is that input from each of the user’s hands can actually function separately. For instance, one hand can enter text data with the use of key depression, while the other hand can control touch events. That said, Fusion keyboard users can simultaneously type data and perform certain touch gestures at the same time.

CNET has pointed out that anyone who uses a laptop that has a Fusion keyboard can work much faster since their hands no longer have to leave the keys just to control to the track pad.

For feedback/questions, please contact reporter at doctormarieathena@yahoo.com.