Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Foldable MacBooks: Six Things to Know About Apple's Future Plans
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Remember when people were putting Magic Keyboards on their 2015-19 MacBooks because the keyboards were failing (I was among them)?
This is that all over again, just with a touchscreen…
Or maybe just maybe Apple come out with a 999 dollar case with a keyboard attachment…
It's not. There's been so many patents for such a device from Apple going back well over a decade. But to make it work there surely has to be a fusion of macOS & iPadOS operating systems....
Unfortunately the bean counters run Apple and want people to buy an iPad and a MacBook, rather than 1 device that can do it all. Perhaps they might finally listen to all the strong criticism of iPadOS and realise that there is a lucrative market for a fully touchscreen MacBook. And I'm sure the bean counters will be very excited when they realise it will cost a lot less to produce than a MacBook as they'll be no physical keys and moving parts at all. Literally just a slab of foldable glass with essentially the same innards as a iPad Pro/MacBook Air.
Bean counters are not running Apple. Every product goes through development that includes decision making on available technologies, new technologies, user experience, new benefits to user, fit within a category, creating a new category, production capability and hundreds of other points…including proposed cost and margin. To suggest that a “bean counter” at Apple is driving, let alone having a major impact on, new product development suggests you’ve really have zero idea of how product development happens at Apple or just about any company.
I’d also challenge this notion that there is a lucrative and untapped market for a touchscreen Mac/iPad converged product. Where are you getting your data from? I could just as easily argue that it’s far more likely that MacOS and the various Mac devices will become even more like iOS, including eliminating even more of the legacy computer operating things that some equate with being a “real” computer.
and?
the point still applies, you're not making sense.
and originally you said your wife, now it's "most people" and/or " this generation". constantly changing your story.
explain "no going back" when apple stopped shipping iPad keyboards without trackpad for many generations and now is shipping iPad keyboards with trackpads. they literally went back lol
Oh to name a couple how about more RAM?
How about a processor that doesn’t get beaten in many workflows by next gen’s Max variant. Which is what I’m facing now between my M3 Max MacBook Pro and my M2 Ultra. M3 Max is better in a lot of ways and it’s ridiculous.
Apple exists to make money. The iPad Pro is the result of bean counters dictating what it can do. The hardware engineers really show off the very best of what Apple can do with mobile focussed computing as the iPad Pro has always been cutting edge and technically brilliant, with this years model taking it to new levels of excellence. Then their souls get crushed when it's forced to run iPadOS which is purposely limited by software decisions so it does not trample on the MacBook market. Everyone can see this! It's not even up for debate.
The bean counters want the iPad Pro to be nothing more than a companion device. It's been this way since the iPad Pro launched and it's done on purpose, with very small 'concessions' made in an attempt to market it as "Pro" now and then with new 'features' that usually disappoint, but of course it still massively misses the mark on an annual basis.
I don't know, maybe the iPad Pro will get a massively reworked iPadOS that it truly deserves this year, but how long have we been crossing our fingers? Since 2016. And only another week to wait for our annual disappointment. Hooray!
Do you mean upgradability? I can get behind that, but the rest of what you’re saying I don’t think applies to the vast majority of people, pro or not.
If you're tired of speculating about foldables, feast your eyes on this, and tell us what it's about!
Poor man's Apple vision, that allows you a kinda sorta partial interaction with virtual visual objects?
Way to let people around you see the ghosts of what you are seeing on your vision pro?
Way to tap into the oh-so-lucrative projective display market pioneered by Humane?
BTW there are also a surprisingly large number of Apple patents surrounding various aspects of "smart fabrics". I suspect that's another area where at some point (and who knows when? five years from now?) Apple will ship something we did not expect. Maybe a smart glove? A health-data-collecting undershirt?
US11740689B1 - Electronic devices with projectors - Google Patents
An electronic device may include an ambient light sensor that measures ambient light color, a projector that projects ambient-light-matching illumination onto a surface, a user input device such as a microphone that gathers user input, and a position sensor that measures a position of the...
patents.google.com
Poor man's Apple vision, that allows you a kinda sorta partial interaction with virtual visual objects?
Way to let people around you see the ghosts of what you are seeing on your vision pro?
Way to tap into the oh-so-lucrative projective display market pioneered by Humane?
BTW there are also a surprisingly large number of Apple patents surrounding various aspects of "smart fabrics". I suspect that's another area where at some point (and who knows when? five years from now?) Apple will ship something we did not expect. Maybe a smart glove? A health-data-collecting undershirt?
The thing that makes it a silly idea, something that even if brought to market, it would fail, is the existence of a $400 iPad Pro keyboard.
If touch was so pro, why would physical keyboards be such a popular product?
Well the iPad only has 1 screen so a physical keyboard is all that can be offered.
I just think it's a device Apple will bring to market at some point especially as iPad sales wane. There's far too many patents for such a device for them not to bring it to market, so there's clearly been at least a decades worth of R&D into such a product if you follow the patent trail. There's even patents for an iMac like device with a built in touch screen keyboard, so it suggests Apple have really been exploring this idea for a while internally. Link below shows the patents with the physical keyboard, but there's also a variation with an all glass/screen version where the physical keyboard is.
Last edited:
I also said my M3 Max is sometimes better than my M2 Ultra.
100% These images say that I find the 12.9 IPP useable in non horizontal mode 😀
Whether I am sitting at a desk, cross legged on the floor or semi-reckining while I’m doing haemodialysis, I find using an iPad in non horizontal mode intuitive, like you. Actually, they call out to me to use the pencil, so…..
Tom
For the Mac Mini to be actually useful you need to buy a mouse, keyboard, and display. But if you dont want to spend $30 on a USB-C keyboard for this MacTablet Fold, just use the onscreen one.
I can’t stretch any single app window across both displays; seems to be a Sidecar limitation.