Do you constantly eat over your keyboard, showering all its impossible crevices with remnants from your delicious but horrible to eat crunchy granola bars? Well apparently, Apple could fix this issue if they wanted to. They have the technology.
First spotted by The Verge, a patent for a crumb, liquid, and dust-resistant keyboard filed by Apple back in September of 2016 was just made public yesterday, and hoo boy, is it serious about debris.
According to the 19-page patent, Apple described two possible ways a keyboard could "prevent contaminant ingress" in detail (and yes, those are the company's actual words). The first method is the simplest, and essentially consists of sealing up all the nooks and crannies of the keyboard with gaskets. The second is way more fun, and involves attaching a substrate to each key cap that would "direct contaminants away from the movement mechanism." In other words, every time you pressed a key it would blow crumbs and dust out like an Airzooka.
I'd honestly really like to mock this more than I have, but as someone who once spilled so much liquid on their computer that an Apple Store employee called it "thoroughly milked," I could definitely see how it could come in handy. Unfortunately though, outside of the patent's existence there are no signs that Apple is moving forward with the crumbless keyboard project in any real way. For now, you'll just have to stick to the dumb 'ol "be super careful if you're simultaneously drinking wine and eating popcorn while re-watching Trollhunter again" method. A pain, sure, but better safe than sorry.
Thoughts?
What's your favorite food to eat over your keyboard? Share your snacks in the comments!
