An Apple patent application has described how transparent glass keycaps could be used to improve MacBook keyboard durability.
Rather fittingly, given the unhappy history of the butterfly keyboard on MacBooks, the patent acknowledges the difficulties inherent in trying to design a keyboard that is both thin and durable…
One perennial problem with keyboards is that printed keycaps tend to wear off over time. The patent application describes a way to completely avoid that by having inverted keyboard glyphs beneath the surface, so that light shines through the transparent surface.
The result, says Apple, would be keycaps that are very thin but extremely durable.
In some cases, the transparent body can comprise a glass material, the carrier body can comprise a polymer material, and the light-blocking material can comprise an opaque layer positioned between the glass material and the polymer material. The transparent body can comprise a transparent polymer material, and the top external surface can also comprise concave curvature. That concave curvature can be substantially cylindrically or spherically concave.
Apple initially played down problems with the butterfly keyboards it introduced in an effort to make MacBooks thinner before offering a service program for them, trying revised materials that didn’t solve the problem — and eventually abandoning the design in favor of a new-generation scissor mechanism first fitted to the 16-inch MacBook Pro. Further improving keyboard durability is certainly a worthy goal.
Via Tom’s Guide
