Apple has utilized for a patent (quantity US 20230142264 A1) that hints at future Mac laptops with contact screens and haptic suggestions. The patent submitting is dubbed “haptic construction for offering haptic outputs at an digital system.”
Concerning the patent submitting
Within the patent submitting, Apple notes that digital gadgets similar to laptops, tablets, and smartphones usually have other ways of notifying customers of various occasions that happen. This may embrace taking part in sounds, offering haptic outputs similar to a vibration, displaying a visible notification, and so forth. The haptic output could also be offered by an actuator that makes use of a vibratory motor or an oscillating motor.
Nonetheless, Apple says that these vibratory motors sometimes vibrate the whole digital system and aren’t in a position to present a localized haptic output. Additional, typical vibratory motors are typically cumbersome, and it might be fascinating to have haptic constructions that may be positioned in smaller areas and/or take up much less room.
Although the corporate has beforehand and insistently denied plans for a laptop computer with a contact display screen, Apple is no less than investigating options to the above-mentioned issues. And people options contain sensors that “detect an enter” — in different phrases, a contact display screen.
Abstract of the patent submitting
Right here’s Apple’s (very technical) summary of the patent submitting: “Embodiments are directed to an digital system that features a cowl and a haptic module positioned under the duvet. The haptic module features a substrate positioned under the duvet and offset from the duvet, a spacer positioned between the substrate and the duvet and coupling the substrate to the duvet, and a piezoelectric factor positioned on a floor of the substrate and offset from the duvet to outline a spot between the piezoelectric factor and the duvet.
“The digital system can even embrace a sensor coupled to the duvet and configured to detect an enter, and a processing unit operably coupled to the piezoelectric factor and configured to trigger the piezoelectric factor to deflect the duvet in response to the sensor detecting the enter.”
