The US Patent and Trademark Office has released a patent application from Apple that reveals a possible evolutionary process that would completely do away with the idea of a physical trackpad and replace it with a kind of dynamic trackpad idea that could be located at the width of the MacBook, that is, it would not be a fixed mechanical component but by means of a touch surface we could make this trackpad more or less large than would base its surface on backlighting.
Conventional electronic devices typically include a variety of input components such as peripherals (whether or not they are integrated), typically a keyboard and a trackpad or mouse that allow the user to interact with the laptop. What Apple wants to do is overcome the limitations imposed by fixed elements and make it possible to adapt them to user needs by being dynamic.
In today's patent application we are able to see the evolutionary process of this MacBook design change starting by focusing on a hybrid design in which the first changes could come to the trackpad area, keeping the traditional keyboard intact.
This hybrid Apple MacBook design would include what Apple calls a "dynamic input surface" comprising a metallic contact portion that defines an input area, and a group of indicators would be selectively illuminated based on a gesture made to metallic contact. . The size of the input zone dynamically it would vary depending on the gesture.
We should not think of a touch screen but that the material it would be made of metal only that a series of microperforations would be carried out in the metal to let the light pass through them and that as the user passes the finger, they light up. If you can remember in the previous MacBook, the light indicator to indicate to the user that the equipment was in suspension, showed a point of light through the metal using this method of micro-perforations. For now, it only remains to confirm which light technology would be used but the idea from my point of view is fantastic.
