Future iPads and iPad Pros may feature a completely new type of keyboard with touch sensors on the sides of the keyboard, replacing the trackpad on the Magic Keyboard. This would allow users to perform gestures by tapping or swiping near the keyboard rather than on it.

The "Portable Computing Input Devices and Methods" patent (via Patently Apple) is a whopping 217 pages long and is filled with many minor improvements to the keyboard design. But the new concept of a keyboard peripheral for the iPad is one that catches our eye, even if it doesn't make it into the final product.

The patent features a "touch-sensitive strip" along the left and right edges and a microphone built into the base instead of a trackpad. The microphones are not for Siri commands, but for detecting swipe and tap inputs made on the surface where the iPad is placed and translating them into gestures normally made on a trackpad. The touch strip does not appear to be wide enough to be used in the normal trackpad style.

The patent also discusses changing some of the keys to remove less frequently used keys and combining the functionality of other keys to save space. This applies not only to physical keyboards, but also to the virtual keyboards on iPhones and iPads.

Keys on the Magic Keyboard concept can also be made force-sensitive. For example, pressing the arrow keys with different pressure can make a web page scroll at different speeds, or pressing the space key harder than usual can make a paragraph break be inserted.

Apple's Magic Keyboard peripheral for the latest generation iPad Pro allows the flagship tablet to be used more like a traditional laptop; it uses the same keyswitches as the Magic Keyboard on the MacBook Pro, and is much better than the older input method far superior to the Butterfly Keyboard. However, it is a heavy, expensive peripheral and has not yet been optimized for enough applications.

The design of the iPad in illustration still retains the home button of cheaper iPad models like the standard iPad and iPad Air. Hopefully this means that there will eventually be an alternative other than the Magic Keyboard Type Cover, which is currently the only official accessory of its kind sold by Apple.