Apple has filed a new patent depicting a way for consumers to dock their iPhone to power a netbook shell in place of a traditional trackpad.
If you own both an iPhone and a MacBook, you’ve likely tried one or two apps which might let you control your computer through your mobile phone’s touchscreen. Apple has had a similar idea, and has now patented a way to dock and use an iPhone in place of a netbook’s trackpad.
Before you get excited, the patented idea isn’t as glamorous a concept as we make out. Rather than describe a system in which an iPhone could serve as a wireless trackpad, the filing instead reflects a netbook without a glass trackpad, and in its place would sit a cradle for an iPhone.
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A consumer could then insert their iPhone into the cradle, and presumably either begin to use the mobile device as a trackpad, or – in a more extreme application – actually use their handset to power the MacBook as a laptop shell.
This is not an idea without some precedent; the HP Elite X3 has a Notebook Extender – which serves to extend the phone into a budget laptop through Windows Continuum – while another concept, the Superbook, can empower Android phones to take on the same light.
Given the fact that Apple refers to its A9 and A9x mobile processors as ‘desktop class’ and that the company recently launched its 2016 MacBook Pro series with a larger trackpad, it would seem the idea has been gestating for a while at Apple HQ.
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What are your thoughts? Would you be interested in purchasing a notebook shell for your iPhone? Be sure to let us know your opinion in the comments below!
Follow Bryan Smith on Twitter: @bryansmithSA
Source: USPTO
