Future MacBook keyboards could have dynamic symbol displays, according to an Apple patent.

 Apple has applied for a patent on a keyboard that would completely alter the way we type. This week, the US Patent and Trademark Office released a new patent application that reveals Apple is developing a system that would enable future keyboards to display various symbols depending on the context.

The most recent Apple patent application proposes a revolutionary keyboard for the MacBook

Currently, Apple's MacBook keyboards' backlighting technology does nothing more than make the keys visible in low light. The labels on the keys themselves are static, pre-printed symbols that cannot be modified and may become worn with repeated use.

This week's patent application envisions a keyboard with perforations through the top and bottom layers for each key to address these problems. The keyboard's backlighting would then be able to intelligently illuminate each key to display a variety of symbols and letters. When the keyboard is turned on, light that passes through the keycaps from beneath their top surfaces may cause the glyphs for each of the keycaps to show on the keys.

Due to unique light sources or displays that are positioned on or beneath each of the keycaps, the glyphs could appear to float. Unlike traditional keyboards where light often spills between neighbouring keycaps or is visible between or below the keycaps, this keyboard allows all of the light output from the light sources or displays to be directed through the top of the keycaps to form the glyphs.

In a different situation, the patent application envisions a light source that is a "array of LEDs, such as a display using micro-LED or OLED pixels." This would be a more sophisticated use of the concept with more controls, customizability possibilities, and flexibility in general. In this case, the number of keycap perforations might match the number of pixels on the display, allowing each pixel to illuminate a single keycap perforation.This would enable the generation of glyphs with variable or customizable shapes, characters, colours, symbols, animations, languages, and other elements to be controlled by the displays/light sources.

In Apple's submission, there is also some visual material with examples of how the technology might function. The keycaps of the keyboard might be created utilising materials that aren't generally used in keycaps for traditional keyboards, like metals like aluminium, according to the patent application's explanation. This would enable the keycaps to have top surfaces that are visually consistent with the housing surfaces of the keyboard that may also have metal surfaces that surround the keycaps.