Apple patent reveals docking gadget to turn iPhone and iPad into a complete computer
Apple has patented a "dumb" Macbook dock that would work with the iPhone or iPad providing the smarts. pic US Patent Office |
APPLE has a simple plan to turn your iPhone or iPad into a new type of MacBook that is possibly Apple’s smartest, and dumbest, computer ever.
A day after news of Samsung’s smartphone dock broke, the US Patent office has approved an Apple patent to use the smarts in the iPhone or iPad in a “dumb” MacBook dock.
Unlike the Samsung dock, which adds ports to a Samsung smartphone but no extra keyboard, the Apple idea for the iPhone and iPad is a more complete computing solution.
While some patents, by the time they are approved, show ideas that are several years old, this latest patent by Apple was only lodged about the time Apple released the iPhone 7 last year.
Apple has been granted a patent for the “Electronic Accessory Device” that would drop an iPhone into the keyboard of a MacBook-style dock, so that the iPhone screen becomes the trackpad, or in another version the iPad becomes the MacBook-style dock’s screen — unlike a real MacBook, would still be a touchscreen.
The patent, discovered by Apple Insider, isn’t just as simple as a keyboard with a hole for the iPad or iPhone.
Maoni