Apple has an airtight ecosystem with well-integrated software. It’s a concrete benefit to owning Apple’s full stack of products: iPhones, iPads, Macs, etc. However, when it comes to hardware, Apple draws a clear line in the sand, less willing than its competitors to blur the lines between product types.
For example, Apple maintains that the iPad will remain a tablet even though it contains the ingredients needed to double as a laptop. Conversely, a detachable or convertible Mac will probably never exist. Well, probably.
Thanks to a patent filed in 2017, we know Apple is at least toying with the idea of creating a strange hybrid device that would essentially turn an iPhone into a laptop. You read that correctly, an iPhone. The conceptual device is essentially a display with a battery, and when you insert your iPhone into a slot where the trackpad would be, it transforms into a laptop. The phone powers the entire experience, providing processing, graphics, memory, and storage.
In another iteration, an iPad slots into a gap where the laptop screen would reside, providing the visuals and power for what is essentially a standard laptop deck (keyboard, touchpad, etc) and the frame, or bezels, of a display.
Apple has an airtight ecosystem with well-integrated software. It’s a concrete benefit to owning Apple’s full stack of products: iPhones, iPads, Macs, etc. However, when it comes to hardware, Apple draws a clear line in the sand, less willing than its competitors to blur the lines between product types.
For example, Apple maintains that the iPad will remain a tablet even though it contains the ingredients needed to double as a laptop. Conversely, a detachable or convertible Mac will probably never exist. Well, probably.
Thanks to a patent filed in 2017, we know Apple is at least toying with the idea of creating a strange hybrid device that would essentially turn an iPhone into a laptop. You read that correctly, an iPhone. The conceptual device is essentially a display with a battery, and when you insert your iPhone into a slot where the trackpad would be, it transforms into a laptop. The phone powers the entire experience, providing processing, graphics, memory, and storage.
In another iteration, an iPad slots into a gap where the laptop screen would reside, providing the visuals and power for what is essentially a standard laptop deck (keyboard, touchpad, etc) and the frame, or bezels, of a display.