Don’t you sometimes wish you could just rip the display off your MacBook and use it as an iPad? OK, maybe that’s a bit violent, but it’s still worth dreaming of. The folks over at Apple apparently agree with me, as Cupertino has just been granted an application by the U.S. Patent and Trademarks Association for a “Clutch barrel antenna for wireless electronic devices.”
Obviously, the title doesn’t necessarily imply “transformable iPad/MacBook hybrid,” but just hold your horses for a second as we parse through this patent speak.
So the whole “clutch barrel” bit has to do with a way in which you can connect the two devices and install antennas into the contraption. The display will be able to rotate as well as be completely detached if, let’s say, you want to do a little leisurely reading.
The idea of combining a tablet and a computer seems to be the direction Apple is headed. If you think about OS X Lion a bit, it’s obvious that iOS was in mind during development, if not a concrete source to draw from.
Not everyone necessarily loved the new platform, but it is clear that Apple is considering touch just as heavily as it is the keyboard, if not more. That said, Apple has filed a number of patents that are related to this same iPad/MacBook hybrid, so it wouldn’t be all that surprising to see this concept come to life over the next couple years.
[via Patently Apple]
Started by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple has expanded from computers to consumer electronics over the last 30 years, officially changing their name from Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple, Inc. in January 2007. Among the key offerings from Apple’s product line are: Pro line laptops (MacBook Pro) and desktops (Mac Pro), consumer line laptops (MacBook Air) and desktops (iMac), servers (Xserve), Apple TV, the Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server operating systems, the iPod, the...
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