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Sonder's Customizable E-Ink Keyboard Again Rumored for 2018 MacBooks as CEO Denies Meeting Tim Cook

Thunderhawks said:
I don't see much more that can be done, besides thinning, increase and use faster memory and SSD sizes.
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A convertible tablet for one. Put the slimming of the cases and the thinning of the bezels to use (except the wow effect) and make a usable convertible, that you can hold in your hand for reading and put down for serious writing with an OS that sports a full fledged file system, the possibility to use whatever apps you want and trackpad/mouse support in Laptop mode.

Just make the tablet part multitouch/touchscreen and adapt a few essential passive (consumption) Apps like Preview, mail, media players etc. in a portrait tablet mode et voilà. It should be really easy to do, seeing as iOS and MacOS are derivatives of the same source. Just let devs adapt the interfaces of their Apps to the new mode and you'll have an ecosystem in no time.

Sadly Apple is too stuck in selling their iOS stuff (iPad Pro lol) for this to ever happen to a single device (You need to have all their devices with dongles etc.) , while Microsoft manages to pull it off and HP, Lenovo etc. delivering the necessary hardware with their latest kabylake iterations. These will get even better the next year and the years to come.
 
Apple should stop leaning towards gimicky features. That's one thing Steve was so great about: He was against the implementation of gimicks.

I, for one, would MUCH rather continue to have the backlit keyboard than this stupid E-ink keyboard.
 
gpat said:
Why would I want something so gimmicky on my computer?
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not at all gimmicky. Imagine the usage. Apple will have to manufacture just one type of keyboard which would just adopt to various language. It would adopt to various lab applications. Various pro apps where shortcuts would become bold etc.
 
bennyf said:
I'd sooner want a keyboard with no labels. Why customize something that you really shouldn't be looking at very much?

Custom keycaps just sounds like something Asus or Gimmicks-r-us would put in their laptop not Apple. And there's no way on earth this tech would save them money on having to make multiple keyboards layouts. There are robots that can grab and pop on whatever keys desired and little kids who will do it even cheaper.

Please don't ask the rest of us to subsidize your childish toys and put e-Ink keys in every Macbook.

Example of a truly Apple-worthy Pro keyboard:
dk4u-front-view-no-perspective.png
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That is the ugliest keyboard I've ever seen.
 
Glass keypad... I've been emailing Tim about this for years. Why do I have cheap plastic keys on my $2k+ MBP?
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TMRJIJ said:
That is the ugliest keyboard I've ever seen.
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Presumably, you'll be able to decide how you want the keys to look.
 
This Sonders keyboard costs $ 199 but man it looks glossy and slow with very low key travel not something I like or appreciate, hence why I love my mechanical keyboard at home.

The Daskeyboard is great but it lacks the ability of programmable keys (yes that's very useful). For me the easiest way to learn - the most important excel shortcuts - has always been to print them out and stick them infront of my desk.

Apple really needs to find their focus again and stop with gimmicky features. Steve would have given these guys 2 minutes to convince the guy what this stuff is useful if he wasn't convinved Apple would scrap the idea.
 
oneMadRssn said:
That's what I've heard from a few people. I like the idea in theory though. It seems like e-ink might actually be perfect for this use.
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I bought one of his clocks. It cost me 175 USD but had the build quality of a 15 USD product. Sent it straight back.
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frankgrimes said:
Apple really needs to find their focus again and stop with gimmicky features. Steve would have given these guys 2 minutes to convince the guy what this stuff is useful if he wasn't convinved Apple would scrap the idea.
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1. Sigh... this forum is full of broken records.
2. It is a rumor, it is a rumor, it is a rumor.
3. It has already been established that the source is bogus.
4. Relax
 
Bring Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad with built-in two-port hub sporting USB 3.1 Type-C (reversible) 2nd Generation (10 Gbps).
 
I much rather have this on my MBP than the OLED panel.

Programs like Photoshop, Maya, AutoCAD and games could benefit from symbols for keyboard shortcut. It's also nice if you have to write in different language where you can't use the same keyboard. I like to try out a DVORAK keyboard or make a scientific calulcator out of my keyboard.
 
bennyf said:
I'd sooner want a keyboard with no labels. Why customize something that you really shouldn't be looking at very much?

Custom keycaps just sounds like something Asus or Gimmicks-r-us would put in their laptop not Apple. And there's no way on earth this tech would save them money on having to make multiple keyboards layouts. There are robots that can grab and pop on whatever keys desired and little kids who will do it even cheaper.

Please don't ask the rest of us to subsidize your childish toys and put e-Ink keys in every Macbook.

Example of a truly Apple-worthy Pro keyboard:
dk4u-front-view-no-perspective.png
Click to expand...

That would work for me too, but we type properly and have a command of our languages. If we were typing in another alphabet for some reason we'd get mixed up quickly.

I am thinking the right move for those who need multiple alphabets would be to wire each key to be on-off capacitive in addition to on/off pressed, or have a capacitive panel behind everything that can sense touch at a distance.

Then you could touch, but not press a key, to see a tooltip of what character you're going to press.

If you're wiring up individual keys, it would only double the wiring needs (only 50% more if you use the same ground). Versus putting a display in each key, which seems like superlative complexity.
 
1madman1 said:
Bilingual isn't a regulatory requirement, nor was it a decision of the manufacturers. The shift to "Canadian Multilingual" keyboards with certain brands happened at the request of national retailers to simplify inventory management, primarily due to the rise of eStores that need to sell the same stock as their physical locations countrywide. I was in retail in 2007/2008 when the shift took place and heard this from reps with both HP and Sony.
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Bilingual keyboards aren't a regulatory requirement for the whole country, just Quebec. But because Quebec requires them, manufacturers decided to make most of the low priced laptops bilingual only. This article sums it up pretty good.

From the article:
"The move stems in part from the 1977 Quebec language law, the Charter of the French Language. Regulations enacted based on it require vendors supplying computers in Quebec to provide keyboards “with inscriptions, command buttons and keyboard keys in French.” The multilingual keyboard also makes it easier to type accented characters.

Rather than offering separate products in Quebec and the rest of Canada, some vendors have opted to supply multilingual keyboards across the board, typically on the lower-priced consumer units. They say it reduces costs and the complexity of inventory control."
 
Kaibelf said:
Ridiculous rumor. Apple would never add this functionality to a keyboard for such a low price. :rolleyes:

But in all seriousness, this is an interesting concept, but as the main input option for a computer, would likely seem a little too gimmicky for Apple to try to rock the boat. Can you imagine the rush to class action lawsuits if 2 or 3 of these had errors and someone couldn't change their keys back from Mandarin or emojis? Certainly someone would need to cover those lost wages and the emotional distress. :eek:
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Just consider it a feature for ever having switched to an emoji keyboard.
 
Is this something like an e-ink version of the Art Lebedev Optimus? I liked it when it was announced / teased a long time ago, but I remember it coming with a very hefty price tag and I'm not even sure how many keyboards actually made it to the market.

The idea is neat but I'd rather have it as a standalone keyboard than built into the laptop where it most likely will have a negative impact on the price.
 
gpat said:
Why would I want something so gimmicky on my computer?
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Because I could customize a keyboard automagically: no more different keyboards for different countries... only customizable by software. Do you know that there is not only QWERTY? ;-)
 
pietrov said:
Because I could customize a keyboard automagically: no more different keyboards for different countries... only customizable by software. Do you know that there is not only QWERTY? ;-)
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I was referring to the crappy laser keyboard thingy from the post I quoted, not the e-ink one.
 
gpat said:
I was referring to the crappy laser keyboard thingy from the post I quoted, not the e-ink one.
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The point is not the keyboard, the point is the possibility to program all of the keys...
 
gpat said:
It wouldn't provide any haptic feedback, and would work terribly on every surface different from a plain one.
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You are right with that. What I'm really angry with is, in the company where I work, different keyboard, from qwertz to qwerty, up to different positions of keys also in the same qwerty...
Note that if they can project the letter (or symbol), this problem is solved, mapped via software and I finally could forget headaches for wrong keys pressed... :apple:
 
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