Patents and clues pointing to all-glass MacBooks and iMacs have been floating around since 2011, and this week, another patent has appeared on Patently Apple — a “glass housing” for a MacBook-like device. It has a virtual keyboard and trackpad, and there’s even a separate patent for “finger devices” that would decrease the strain of typing on a glass surface.
One of the most interesting things about the glass housing is that it “provides I/O functionality.” This means, that instead of inserting a separate trackpad or keyboard keys into the housing for users to interact with, the housing itself would provide a method of input and output. In some areas and contexts, the surface would function simply as housing to protect internal components, and in others, it would display information and react to user input.
It all sounds like something out of a sci-fi show, but it’s pretty hard to imagine how this would really work. For one thing — it’s made out of glass. While there are types of extremely strong — even bulletproof — glass out there, a laptop made out of glass definitely sounds delicate.
There is a chance that the patents will never become a product, and there’s also a chance that they become a niche product only for the most passionate Apple fans — in these cases, perhaps the glass is just normal, delicate glass. If Apple is planning to make a real consumer product out of this, however, we have to assume that the glass would actually be pretty hardy.
The finger devices only add to the weirdness — it seems pretty backward to make a keyboard out of materials that are uncomfortable to use and then fix the problem with tiny little finger hats to improve comfort. But considering the fact that Apple trackpads are also a flat surface that only simulates a click through haptic feedback, would it really be that uncomfortable to type on a glass keyboard?
The patent doesn’t provide much information at this point, and plenty of Apple patents never turn into real products. Still, it’s interesting to see different ideas Apple has explored, even if we’ll never actually see them on store shelves.