When it comes to laptops, their designs are pretty ubiquitous, and efforts to reinvent the wheel as it were are few and far in between, probably for good reason. But an Apple patent suggests that the fruit company is considering making its MacBooks modular.
As the patent reads, “reconfigurable computing devices can be desirable to provide a higher quality user experience within a broad spectrum of uses and environments”. Drawings within the patent show a main device, essentially a tablet, coming with a hinge to allow for more components to be attached. This allows another touch screen to be attached, or a keyboard, or even both.
So far, these are configurations that make sense. A second screen can both double as a virtual keyboard, or sketch pad. They are also not necessarily the most original of ideas, especially when Sidecar allows its current products to achieve similar results where additional displays are concerned. But to truly emphasize on its modularity, the Apple patent shows that it’s also possible to attach a vinyl turntable to it.
Second screen and turntable aside, Apple technically already has products to emulate a semi-modular laptop, with its iPads and the Magic Keyboards. This is especially with the much rumoured refresh of the iPad Pro coming next year, making it and its Magic Keyboard more laptop-like. Perhaps the differentiating factor here would be that this modular device, as described by the patent, will be running macOS rather than iPadOS.
With that in mind, this Apple patent is more likely than most to remain just a patent. Unless of course the company truly sees value in this kind of modularity. But as we’ve seen, these are not usually the prime example of affordable tech, to say the least.
(Source: USPTO [PDF])
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