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.
