The touch-sensitive trackpad on Apple's MacBook computers is already pretty large, but can you imagine a MacBook which replaces the entire keyboard with one giant touchpad?
Apple can. In the patent, the company proposes a "force-sensitive input structure for an electronic device," a customizable, clean, flat surface that reacts to where you press.
Apple refers to this type of input structure as "zero-travel," meaning there would be no keys or surfaces that move (at least not noticeably) when you press them. The surface would, however, sense the force of your fingers and return haptic feedback as you type.
The biggest advantage of such an input method would be configurability — a user could set aside portions of the slate for a numeric keypad, multiple trackpads, or a special set of keys (see one possibility in the image below
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