We all know Steve Jobs hates buttons. It must kill him that the latest MacBook pros still have a little battery life indicator button on the side. Now Apple has a solution to get rid of that button too. Apple has been researching invisible buttons, basically a capacitor behind a device’s outer shell that can read an input. An easy prediction is that the next MacBook pros will feature battery indicator lights that simply light up when you touch the battery. But what about when the device doesn’t have a visible battery compartment?
An interesting side effect of a button is, you know it does something when press it. Once you know what the button does, you know you can press it again and get the same result. Half the Mac laptops do not have removable batteries. The battery indicator button’s presence is the only indication that there is a way to show the battery’s life. So the question becomes, with no battery or button, how does the user know where to touch the device to see how much life is left in the battery?
And now we know WHY Steve hates buttons.
http://ninjerktsu.blogspot.com/2010/04/year-1967-los-altos-california-young.html
The patent talks about more then just the indicator, so it’s a possibility that it can become a major feature on newer Apple products.
Direct customer attention to the concept. Once they grasp the concept, they will learn to apply it where it is applicable (most of the time, some customers are just clueless)