Apple has filed a patent for a new MacBook: the PC of the future could have six screens. Here's what it looks like
From the Chinese government's patent office comes a hypothesis on what the MacBooks of the future might look like: with six screens, one classic and up to five more positioned around the keyboard. The patent was applied for in September 2018 and granted and registered in May 2020.
The patent describes a "Laptop computer including a part intended for display coupled to a base containing displays." The document also says that the laptop base consists of a keyboard and a cover that transmits light. This cover is a touch-sensitive layer that can become an input zone through which the user can send commands. It's not very easy to understand what this is all about, because the design of this laptop is very different from that of a traditional laptop. But the drawings attached to the patent, as always, explain very well what has been invented by Apple.
Macbook with six screens: how it is made
This hypothetical MacBook of the future, as you may have guessed, differs from the current ones only in the part of the body that houses the keyboard. The main display and its frame are not different from those we are already used to. The other five screens (but it could be four more, or less, depending on the manufacturer's choice) surround the keyboard. Two are under the keyboard, on either side of the touchpad (which, however, in the drawings attached to the patent is not even there), two are to the right and left of the keyboard itself, vertically, and the last one is a wide and thin strip positioned between the keyboard and the hinge of the main display. The most credible hypothesis about the functioning of these screens is the one that sees them intended for special functions, gestures or to replace the function keys.
Will it really come?
As always, when we talk about patents, we must specify that patent does not mean project: it is not at all sure that one day Apple will build such a MacBook, with five or six screens. It's one of the possibilities, but it's not a certainty. Also because, just as it received approval for this patent in China, Apple presented another in the United States in which it shows a MacBook with a large virtual area under the keyboard, where there is room for a highly customizable touchpad. This touchpad, however, would occupy the space where the two screens under the keyboard should be mounted. The two patents, in short, conflict with each other.