There’s really no reason to get up in arms every time an Apple patent is dissected, but this is particularly interesting – especially if you’re a die-hard fan of a good, sturdy mouse. In other words: if you hated the Magic Trackpad, you’re really gonna hate this.
Apple is apparently looking into yet more options to kill the world’s favourite rodent-inspired electronic peripheral, and one of them is this hybrid motion-sensitive keyboard. Four sensors located around the keys track the motion of your right hand, which you wave around like a Mac magician, moving the cursor on-screen. Your left hand is used for key modifiers and whatnot.
Of course, you have to switch in and out of magic hovering motion mouse mode from regular typing mode – which, honestly, starts to make this idea seem less and less viable. Sure, this tech might not be targeting the traditional mouse at all, and could find a good home in some sort of future super-small MacBook… but is it really good enough to replace a traditional multitouch pad? Personally, I don’t think so.Apple To Try To Kill the Mouse (Again)?
There’s really no reason to get up in arms every time an Apple patent is dissected, but this is particularly interesting – especially if you’re a die-hard fan of a good, sturdy mouse. In other words: if you hated the Magic Trackpad, you’re really gonna hate this.
Apple is apparently looking into yet more options to kill the world’s favourite rodent-inspired electronic peripheral, and one of them is this hybrid motion-sensitive keyboard. Four sensors located around the keys track the motion of your right hand, which you wave around like a Mac magician, moving the cursor on-screen. Your left hand is used for key modifiers and whatnot.
Of course, you have to switch in and out of magic hovering motion mouse mode from regular typing mode – which, honestly, starts to make this idea seem less and less viable. Sure, this tech might not be targeting the traditional mouse at all, and could find a good home in some sort of future super-small MacBook… but is it really good enough to replace a traditional multitouch pad? Personally, I don’t think so.
Alexander Wallin
Do you have any sources on this? That drawing don’t look so Apple.
Ukjoesaar
I like a trackpad.
Mike Ebert
I don’t see this killing off the mouse, just like virtual keyboards (think cameras tracking fingers or keyboards on touch screens) don’t do well at replacing real keyboards–humans really like to have a tactile response. Holding a mouse and pressing a key works with the human brain better.
I also don’t like to have to share my keyboard space with my cursor tool, especially for gaming. There’s very little that even comes close to replacing a mouse in a first-person shooter or real-time strategy game.
That being said, I won’t say that there is no application for an idea like this, just that it’s not a mouse-killer.
Zbeast
sorry, I like the mouse.. even on a laptop with a trackpad if i’m doing something that requires me to move around the screen a lot I will use a mouse with it.
Add a touch screen to the laptop… don’t frigging take away functionality by trying to kill off the mouse.
Apuleyo
I love the mouse, and i think that the only way to kill it, it’s with the touch technology.
Adrian
I have used touch screens for over 10 years
I hate having to clean the things all the time 😛