Apple Patent Brings Touch Bar Onto The Magic Keyboard

One of the features of the 2016 MacBook Pro is the Touch Bar, which is basically an OLED strip that replaces the row of function keys and brings about contextual keys and buttons to the laptop. Depending on what you use the laptop for, the Touch Bar can either be seen as a novelty or an invaluable tool.

That being said, is it possible that Apple could eventually bring the Touch Bar to its other products? In a patent discovered by Patently Apple, it seems that Apple has toyed with the idea of bringing the Touch Bar onto the Magic Keyboard. We have to say that this doesn’t really come as a surprise and Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac actually considered this possibility last year.

While the patent does not specifically mention Touch Bar, the diagram certainly seems to suggest that is the case. The patent’s description in part reads, “In some embodiments, the device may also include a processing unit positioned within the housing, and a primary display positioned at least partially within the housing and configured to display a graphical-user interface executed by the processing unit.”

Unfortunately since this is only a patent, there’s really no telling if Apple will make it a reality. However this patent isn’t that far-fetched so don’t be surprised if future Magic Keyboards were to come with the feature, or maybe a variant of it.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, General
Tags: Patent