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I would suggest this is just an R&D project, testing concepts and ideas, looking at what can be achieved, on a larger form.

Someone has leaked this out (probably not for the R&D team) and rumor mongering can commence.
Wouldn’t be a stupid thing for Apple to distract attention from something else, or simply the incessant questions about their other product lines.
Sadly the world we live in wants answers yesterday!
 
This is a weird product. The tactile feel of the keyboard is such an important feature for laptops.

Why not instead focus on getting rid of temporal dithering and PWM?
 
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Remove the physical keyboard and it's an iPad, a folding iPad. People buy MacBooks because an Apple Pencil is too heavy, pressing keys is easier.
 
Why not instead focus on getting rid of temporal dithering and PWM?

Because you have to be a pretty intense nerd to know or care about such things.

But average-joe buyer will see a foldable laptop on display at the Apple Store and think “wow!”
 
Maybe, but the fold needs to be seamless. PERFECT.

"As crease-free as possible" is an excuse and doesn't cut it. If it's not seamless for the life of the device, then the necessary tech isn't here yet.

I'm not sure if it needs to be perfect or simply needs to be good enough for most people, but either way it'll be easier to do in the larger form factor devices.
 
horizontal, flat table touch makes sense (like your trackpad)

vertical touch makes no sense. people who keep asking for MacBooks to be more like PC laptops with vertical touch are wrong.
I’ll tell my mother, who loves being able to scroll and click on her vertical touch iPad, that she’s wrong.
 
I'm not sure if it needs to be perfect or simply needs to be good enough for most people
Good enough works when the device is cheap enough.

But something with the Apple premium? Nobody's going to accept a crease down the middle, even a "free as possible" one. Imagine when people bring their week-old devices back, and are told the crease is normal...
 
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I'm not sure if it needs to be perfect or simply needs to be good enough for most people, but either way it'll be easier to do in the larger form factor devices.
If apple did things "good enough" as a bench mark, they would have released an iPad calculator years ago but no, it has to be perfect. Too scared of critics labeling it as a blown up iPhone app.
 
This is getting hard. Foldable iPhone, iPads, foldable Mac’s, or just go all in on Vision Pro?

I am a bit paralyzed to making a purchase right now because I really want the foldable phone, iPad Pro, foldable MacBook and 2nd Gen studio display. But then….. should I just go all in on Vision?

Interested to see what the next 3 years bring
I totally get it.

I myself have been waiting for a foldable Apple Pencil, a foldable Magic Keyboard, and I personally have my eyes on the 4th gen studio display which is hopefully foldable. Maybe that will be out by the time they have a collapsable Mac Pro so I can take everything to co-working spaces with ease.

I would love a foldable Mac Pro, but it will only work if it is fully collapsable since folding it would still take up too much space.

Without foldable screens and collapsable chassis, my productivity has absolutely plummeted. Apple needs to fix this.
 
Foldable devices is a technology that you want to be mature and proven. I would not buy a foldable phone as an early adopter so that it breaks when you stress it. These things need to be droppable from a 14 floor stairwell and need to be resistant to crushing in a vice. I'd only consider it if the technology torturers on youtube were defeated by Apple engineering.
 
All MacBooks are foldable.

"Foldable MacBook" is by far the dumbest possible name for this rumored product. 9to5 Mac is calling it "foldable iPad" which makes a hell of a lot more sense.
 
I've long suspected that the steady reduction in key travel on their keyboards was conditioning us to use a flat glass keyboard eventually.
But you'll notice also that a lot of people hated the butterfly keyboard feel. Also, when Apple finally came to their senses and buried that piece of ****, they touted "key travel" specifically as a selling point.
 
People would still use a regular keyboard with these devices. How cool would it be to have that much screen realestate though, and it all be multitouch, and be able to fold it to fit situations.
 
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