Apple Files Patent For a Crumb-Resistant MacBook Keyboard (digitaltrends.com) 91
According to a patent application made public on Thursday, March 8, Apple could be developing a new MacBook keyboard designed to prevent crumbs and dust from getting those super-shallow MacBook keys stuck. "Liquid ingress around the keys into the keyboard can damage electronics. Residues from such liquids may corrode or block electrical contacts, getting in the way of key movement and so on," the patent application reads. Digital Trends reports: The application goes on to describe how those problems might be remedied: With the careful application of gaskets, brushes, wipers, or flaps that block gaps beneath keycaps. One solution would include a membrane beneath each key, effectively insulating the interior of the keyboard from the exterior, while another describes using each keypress as a "bellows" to force contaminants out of the keyboard. "A keyboard assembly [could include] a substrate, a key cap, and a guard structure extending from the key cap that funnels contaminants away from the movement mechanism," the patent application reads.
design flaw (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:design flaw (Score:5, Funny)
Besides.. there are laptops with waterproof keyboards already, how is a dust free keyboard even eligible for a new patent?
Most of these keyboards advertise that they are "spill resistant."
This one from Apple is "crumb resistant."
Also, while the others protect against spills, Apple's protects against "liquid ingress."
Most keyboards only go up to 10. Apple's goes up to 11.
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Your 2014 probably doesn't have the new "butterfly" keyboard.
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ThinkPad keyboards have been liquid proof since the 90s. They have channels for the liquid to drain through. Tough book/Dynabook keyboards too.
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Yeah, I saw "Liquid ingress around the keys into the keyboard can damage electronics" and thought, gee, I'm glad I bought a thinkpad because liquid that lands on the keyboard doesn't ingress to a part of the electronics that would be damaged! LOL
I guess it is only because I'm willing to carry around a business laptop that looks like a business laptop that they had enough room in the case for the drain ports.
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Most keyboards only go up to 10.
God damn it, why the fuck didn't someone tell me this earlier? Apparently I've spent my entire life using substandard keyboards that only go up to 9.
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Yeah! I feel with you! And worst of it, after the 9 comes a 0!! What is it doing there?
All sane programmers have their arrays start with 0, so the 0 should be to the left! Such a no brainer!
Sigh, we are surrounded by retards.
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My old Apple full-size aluminium keyboard goes up to F19.
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It was a design flaw to create a keyboard that couldn't be cleaned in the first place. More of Apple putting form over function. Besides.. there are laptops with waterproof keyboards already, how is a dust free keyboard even eligible for a new patent?
It was a design flaw for God to create you.
Honestly, my work Samsung laptop has keys that are completely un-cleanable. It is also non-water-resistant, causing me to now have to carry-around an external keyboard, because the built-in keyboard now has a few non-functional keys, due to a spilled splash of coffee. And the laptop has to be disassembled down to the very last screw to replace the keyboard.
Yes, I know Mac laptops are the same in the replacement needing almost complete disassembly. One of the few th
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Learn how to drink coffee.
I know how to drink coffee. I was just falling-asleep-at-the-keyboard, and the cup started to tip, and...
Re:design flaw (Score:4, Informative)
Apple started the island key bullshit. Flat tops so your fingers can't sense when they are well centred without feeling for the edges. Difficult to clean, very little travel or tactile feel... And more work to replace if it breaks.
Lenovo had better, liquid proof keyboards in the 90s. They still do.
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I don't know what Lenovo had in the 90s, I only bought IBM laptops back then. ;)
But I was scared when I heard the new Thinkpads have chiclet keys... but they're not flat, and they feel mostly the same. The sides are different, on the part you don't touch. Better than most desktop keyboards. Long throw, with crisp motion. They don't have as much tactile response on the bottom of the throw, but the keypress already happened by then; they have clean tactile response on the initial press. Also, they're way easi
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Apple started the island key bullshit. Flat tops so your fingers can't sense when they are well centred without feeling for the edges. Difficult to clean, very little travel or tactile feel... And more work to replace if it breaks.
Lenovo had better, liquid proof keyboards in the 90s. They still do.
Difficult to clean? I've never had any problems with that, if a vacuum cleaner doesn't do the job get a compressed air bottle, hold the lattop so that the keyboard is vertical and blast the dirt out of the keyboard. So far even the 12" MacBook keyboard hasn't given me any problems and the one time I had to have a keyboard replaced it was done under warranty without any complaint. As for 'travel' and 'tactile feels' Im don't spend my days pining for the legendary IBM Model F so I don't really care.
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You speak with God? (Score:2)
Maybe you need less coffee? That would eliminate the chance of you being careless. Maybe something you've eaten is making you cranky? For me it's wheat. Regardless, lighten up Francis!
And I'd rather have a computer I can take a part -- even if it takes every screw -- than one that's most likely glued/soldered together. It's why I stopped buying Macs.
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It was a design flaw to create a keyboard that couldn't be cleaned in the first place. More of Apple putting form over function.
Actually the keyboards on MacBooks are easier to clean than the more traditional style because of the wide gaps between the keys and the tiny gaps between the keys and the chassis. Some people find them awkward to type on, but that's by the by. Why don't you put aside your knee-jerk reaction to anything Apple and take a good look at any other laptop, then think about how you can get dirt out from underneath the key caps.
In my experience the only keyboards that are really easy to clean are the ones usually s
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It was a design flaw to create a keyboard that couldn't be cleaned in the first place.
Yes it is, and every PC and gadget maker copies this design flaw into their own products.
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new mbp keyboards are the worst (Score:2)
The keyboards on the newer macbook pros suck. I could explain whym, but to do so I would have to continue typing on this piece of crap.
What about (Score:2)
Prior art (Score:3)
This problem was 100% solved back in the 80's [retrogamingmuseum.com]. C'mon Apple, do the courageous thing and follow suit!
Re:Prior art (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't really the issue. It's the patent office.
WTF is patentable about some vague concoction full of 'brushes, gaskets, wipers or flaps'? I thought patents were supposed to be about *specific* arrangements of various things to perform a function.
That's the hard part, not 'hey, we could make a keyboard crumb proof' - which is what this appears to be about.
Prior art, indeed.
Re:Prior art (Score:4, Informative)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
And i'm sure those are far from the only examples.
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prior art is anything previously published.
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I hope so, because both those "solutions" are synonymous with "this keyboard needed to be replaced after 1 year because the buttons wore off and cracks formed.
It's not prior art if it's completely different (Score:2)
As none of the proposed claims in Apple's patent application refer to single-piece membranes overlain across the entire keyboard, examples of single-piece membranes are not prior art which would invalidate those claims.
Did anyone bother to read what Apple is claiming in the patent application?
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This problem was 100% solved back in the 80's [retrogamingmuseum.com]. C'mon Apple, do the courageous thing and follow suit!
Did you ever actually try to use a ZX81? ... You see, I didn't just try a ZX81 out at the computer museum once, I actually owned a ZX81 and those keyboards were awful, just plain bloody awful.
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Did you ever actually try to use a ZX81? ... You see, I didn't just try a ZX81 out at the computer museum once, I actually owned a ZX81 and those keyboards were awful, just plain bloody awful.
I sure did -- I spent most of third grade with painful bruises on all of my fingertips. It was totally worth it, though ;)
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read it and thought the same thing.
and on top of that, 'modern' keyboards are already bad enough, and i though it couldn't get much worse, but hey, it looks like apple might pull it of.
Intentionally consumer-hostile design (Score:5, Insightful)
A better move would be to simply make the keyboard repairable/replaceable like other laptop manufacturers do. Instead, it's made part of the main chassis along with a glued-in battery which amounts to $260+ in parts alone, let alone an insane amount of labor, just to replace one of the 2 most-damaged parts of the laptop (the other being the screen, which they make cost 5X what it should in order to extort money from users that way too).
No matter how crumb-resistant or liquid-resistant you try to make the keyboard, it's still going to need to get replaced often.
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weird. (Score:1)
I find it convenient to turn the computer off and wipe it down. No patent required.
How about bug resistant screens (Score:3)
My wifes imac had a bug crawl between the LCD and diffuser and promptly die. It was about 5 pixels big!
Kudos to Apple for replacing it, but you think they could at least seal their screens to stop insects that are attracted to bright lights from crawling in there.
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You can't fully seal a screen and still be able to use it after the seasons change, or after you take it to a different climate than it was in last.
If you didn't need the screen to be able to breath to prevent moisture getting trapped, then you could just seal it so that can't happen. But you have to have air flow, which means a porous gasket. Even with a great gasket an insect can still chew through, or just push through in many cases; it might be strong when pulled or pushed, but still weak to direct late
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"You can't fully seal a screen and still be able to use it after the seasons change"
I can tell you've never worked in an LCD repair depot before.
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I know how to industrial design a portable computer system with an LCD, so I wouldn't bother to worry about what specific training they might give people in repair depots.
Repair people are not experts at how the devices they repair actually work. If they're expert at their job, then they're an expert at deciphering the excuses people make when they break something, and can figure out what really happened well enough to guess which subsystem to test first. They know what the replacement parts are, and how t
Re:How about bug resistant screens (Score:5, Funny)
Are you sure it was a bug and not a feature?
Keyboard condom (Score:2)
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I think "keyboard sleeve" is the term that it is sold as.
... and there exist of course third-party keyboard sleeves for multiple types of Apple chiclet keyboards already.
And yes, as a keyboard collector and enthusiast I have seen (and owned) several examples of prior art with the dust/water-protecting membrane between mechanical key switch and hard keycap surface.
None of those were scissor switches though but that should not matter -- The scissors do not affect the protection scheme.
I have not read the app
Apple has solved their own problem. (Score:3)
MacBook users may rejoice, knowing that maybe their next $1,000+ computer won't have the same problems their current $1,000+ computer does...
Fashion before substance!
Been there, done that (Score:2)
Will it be like the Timex Sinclair 1000 keyboard, the Atari 400 keyboard, the PC Jr keyboard, or the original TI99-4 keyboard? They all kept out liquids and crumbs. Oh, and they sucked.
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My first home computer was a Timex/Sinclair 1000.
Perhaps you saw a new device in the store, so it would make sense you thought it would keep out liquids. But that style of metalicized plastic dome tend to crack. The key thing to understand isn't that plastic can keep water out, it is that it can also keep it in. The foil tends to pinhole, and just using the computer in a cold room can cause condensation on the inside of the keys. It isn't the keys you press that stick, but when you press a key, then the mos
Patent the obvious (Score:2)
All the crumb (etc) things the introduction mentions seem obvious to anyone who has used a keyboard. If any of it gets a patent...it would be crazy.
Beat Apple to it... (Score:2)
copy thinkpad keyboards (Score:2)
Lenovo (IBM) thinkpad keyboards have been water and crumb resistant for ages. Maybe Apple should just license the applicable patents and be done with it instead of re-inventing a perfectly good wheel.
Glass keyboard (Score:2)
Cooling (Score:1)