A brand new patent filed by Apple has revealed Cupertino giant’s plans for a notebook tablet hybrid . This new segment has been gaining a lot of steam for the past few months, with several Windows 8 convertibles populating the market, albeit without much success. There have been several reports about touchscreen displays coming to Macs, but the latest patent nails the rumor to a great effect.
Apple’s Hybrid Notebook Tablet
The patent filing includes details of an ultra cool display with a retractable magnetic mechanism that hides itself once detached from the MacBook’s main body. This is similar to the existing Windows 8 hybrid devices, but Apple’s design points towards rotatable display which may pivot from an open position to a closed position.
Patently Apple, which caught hold of the patent fresh from USPTO talks about the hybrid’s touch display:
the screen may include a touch sensing or other input mechanism, such as a capacitive touch sensor, to allow the screen to further function as an input device for the computing device. This type of input functionality may be helpful when the display is removed from the base.
The coolest thing in the patent application is with regards to the transfer of power wirelessly from the MacBook base to the detached display. This is something really new and unique. It’s not exactly clear how the wireless transmission of power is achieved.
Not all patents translate into actual products, but this one, if made into a tablet-notebook convertible, will be really interesting. Apple is always known to perfect an existing idea, and I’m very keen to know how the software part of it will be handled, considering Mac OS X and iOS are two different platforms right now.