Looks pretty terrible to me. Computer option for phones though, I like the thought. So if the phone is $1000, and the dock with the screen is what, $500? Even at half the price of the cheapest Macbook it would seem pretty expensive.
Ridiculous. And no it’s not being planned. It’s just one idea of thousands. Stupid headline
So, why is it ridiculous?
The iPhone is already more powerful than the MacBook Air and could supply 3/4's of the necessary components (from the CPU to the security and do it better than an MBA). It would also provide all the apps of the App Store.
Is it a sin to mix & merge technologies? Why should Apple keep things quarantined?
Ridiculous. And no it’s not being planned. It’s just one idea of thousands. Stupid headline
So, why is it ridiculous?
The iPhone is already more powerful than the MacBook Air and could supply 3/4's of the necessary components (from the CPU to the security and do it better than an MBA). It would also provide all the apps of the App Store.
It would be quite the engineering feat to have a phone case that dissipates enough heat to keep a full size computer running cool enough to to beat a current MacBook Air on any kind of sustained load. Not saying it is impossible but integrating a good enough heat sink to the case that works to remove heat when docked that doesn’t also burn your hand when using it standalone would be pretty difficult. Until someone does that engineering, in no way is an iPhone A12 faster than a MacBook Air core-i5 under load.
I like the concept, even if it is clearly not novel and thus likely not patentable.
We have come a long way toward integrating multiple devices, and I'd like to see that concept continue. I'd like a consumer version of a macOS feature that allows me to see a virtual representation of my iOS devices. Yes, I can install XCODE or some developer tools, but I'm not a developer. Launch the app from my dock, and see a window that looks like my iPad or iPhone where ever it is...then be able to interface with it using my mac. Handy.
Ridiculous. And no it’s not being planned. It’s just one idea of thousands. Stupid headline
So, why is it ridiculous?
The iPhone is already more powerful than the MacBook Air and could supply 3/4's of the necessary components (from the CPU to the security and do it better than an MBA). It would also provide all the apps of the App Store.
It would be quite the engineering feat to have a phone case that dissipates enough heat to keep a full size computer running cool enough to to beat a current MacBook Air on any kind of sustained load. Not saying it is impossible but integrating a good enough heat sink to the case that works to remove heat when docked that doesn’t also burn your hand when using it standalone would be pretty difficult. Until someone does that engineering, in no way is an iPhone A12 faster than a MacBook Air core-i5 under load.
The "computer" you speak of is already in the iPhone and it has no problems with heat. And the A12 is already faster than the I5 -- especially the low power one in the MBA.
I recall seeing this image from an Apple patent about 6 to 8 years ago during the iPhone 5, possibly iPhone 4S, time frame. The phone in the diagram looks like an iPhone 5 even. Same thing with the iPad. The patent didn’t seem to source or link these earlier patents.
Patents are way too often about ideas, not designs. You should definitely not be awarded a patent for anything close to resembling an idea as ideas are not even worth 2 cents. You can already tell that multiple people in this comment stream have thought of the idea, and that should be an indicator of how unpatentable it should be.
The idea of a phone powering a tablet or a phone powering a laptop or a phone powering a desktop has already been tried. It’s in various forms of shipping products (like Dex or the Moto thing from 10 years ago), or was tried and failed on the market with real hardware. Eg, Asus already tried with their Transformer PadFone Fonepad Megatron series (joking about Megatron part), where they had a tablet accessory that the phone slotted into to power the tablet. It also had a keyboard accessory that the tablet accessory with phone attached to turn it into a laptop. It failed in the market.
Heck, Microsoft’s Surface Studio, Surface Book, Surface Pro with hinge, Surface Duo (dual screen clamshell), all those design ideas have existed in various Apple patents and patent applications from 8 to 10 years ago. The ideas aren’t hard to come up with. Apple had tablet concepts with multiple hinge designs before abandoning it for the shipping product. Having a successful product on other hand is quite difficult. The patent system currently gets this all backwards by awarding ideas, not actual designs or engineering.
Ridiculous. And no it’s not being planned. It’s just one idea of thousands. Stupid headline
So, why is it ridiculous?
The iPhone is already more powerful than the MacBook Air and could supply 3/4's of the necessary components (from the CPU to the security and do it better than an MBA). It would also provide all the apps of the App Store.
It would be quite the engineering feat to have a phone case that dissipates enough heat to keep a full size computer running cool enough to to beat a current MacBook Air on any kind of sustained load. Not saying it is impossible but integrating a good enough heat sink to the case that works to remove heat when docked that doesn’t also burn your hand when using it standalone would be pretty difficult. Until someone does that engineering, in no way is an iPhone A12 faster than a MacBook Air core-i5 under load.
The "computer" you speak of is already in the iPhone and it has no problems with heat. And the A12 is already faster than the I5 -- especially the low power one in the MBA.
Also, consider the cases that many people use to enclose/protect their phones. Never mind placing in pocket or purse. Potentially, these would trap heat, but the phones are designed to handle it.
Heat and fit could still be a problem though, but allow me to propose some feats of engineering:
Provide a ventilated "well" to drop phone into and perhaps a small fan to increase airflow through the well.
The well itself should be a removable module, so new phone form factors could be accommodated with a new well module.
Ridiculous. And no it’s not being planned. It’s just one idea of thousands. Stupid headline
So, why is it ridiculous?
The iPhone is already more powerful than the MacBook Air and could supply 3/4's of the necessary components (from the CPU to the security and do it better than an MBA). It would also provide all the apps of the App Store.
It would be quite the engineering feat to have a phone case that dissipates enough heat to keep a full size computer running cool enough to to beat a current MacBook Air on any kind of sustained load. Not saying it is impossible but integrating a good enough heat sink to the case that works to remove heat when docked that doesn’t also burn your hand when using it standalone would be pretty difficult. Until someone does that engineering, in no way is an iPhone A12 faster than a MacBook Air core-i5 under load.
The "computer" you speak of is already in the iPhone and it has no problems with heat. And the A12 is already faster than the I5 -- especially the low power one in the MBA.
Also, consider the cases that many people use to enclose/protect their phones. Never mind placing in pocket or purse. Potentially, these would trap heat, but the phones are designed to handle it.
Heat and fit could still be a problem though, but allow me to propose some feats of engineering:
Provide a ventilated "well" to drop phone into and perhaps a small fan to increase airflow through the well.
The well itself should be a removable module, so new phone form factors could be accommodated with a new well module.
Good points! I suspect something like this would, in the end, tend to be a third party product more than an Apple product. But then its limitations would be in software and interfacing to the external keyboard. It would be better if the iPhone could run iPad OS -- but that's where the complications for third party solutions come in.
Surely this is a concept from twenty years ago. What’s the point of wasting the space when any connectivity can be wireless.
The point is to use the iPhone as the trackpad, the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth clients, and the computer. Docking the iPhone would change the apps from the iOS mode to the macOS mode. Undocking the phone would change the apps back to the iOS mode.
You need at least 20 Gbps to be able to push video wirelessly, which is not possible with today’s technology.
Docked phone would become the foundation of the MacBook, and Apple would be able to justify a higher price of the phone because a phone and a relatively inexpensive dock would equal a MacBook.
This is my idea of 3 years ago, of which I wrote extensively in several Apple centric forums. I should have patented it then.
If pushing video wirelessly is not possible with today's technology, how has AirPlay been working all these years? Audio too! Sure, it won't drive a 4k or 8k resolution at 60+fps, but you don't really need either in a small-factor laptop screen (except maybe for gaming).
This concept is eerily similar to something Palm attempted years ago, but I can't remember the device.
I recall seeing this image from an Apple patent about 6 to 8 years ago during the iPhone 5, possibly iPhone 4S, time frame. The phone in the diagram looks like an iPhone 5 even. Same thing with the iPad. The patent didn’t seem to source or link these earlier patents.
Yeah, first thing I thought was “didn’t I see this patent years ago?” Weird.
Ridiculous. And no it’s not being planned. It’s just one idea of thousands. Stupid headline
So, why is it ridiculous?
The iPhone is already more powerful than the MacBook Air and could supply 3/4's of the necessary components (from the CPU to the security and do it better than an MBA). It would also provide all the apps of the App Store.
It would be quite the engineering feat to have a phone case that dissipates enough heat to keep a full size computer running cool enough to to beat a current MacBook Air on any kind of sustained load. Not saying it is impossible but integrating a good enough heat sink to the case that works to remove heat when docked that doesn’t also burn your hand when using it standalone would be pretty difficult. Until someone does that engineering, in no way is an iPhone A12 faster than a MacBook Air core-i5 under load.
The "computer" you speak of is already in the iPhone and it has no problems with heat. And the A12 is already faster than the I5 -- especially the low power one in the MBA.
Again, under load it is not going to be faster. A core-i5 in a MBA can dissipate 7 watts sustained with good cooling. An A12 is estimated to be 5 watts under load. You can’t really sustain that on a phone because you can’t dissipate the heat over the longer term. It is just physics.
Apple can clearly make a laptop class version of their A-series chips (e.g. the A12X in an iPad Pro) but it isn’t going to work efficiently in a iPhone case.
Ridiculous. And no it’s not being planned. It’s just one idea of thousands. Stupid headline
So, why is it ridiculous?
The iPhone is already more powerful than the MacBook Air and could supply 3/4's of the necessary components (from the CPU to the security and do it better than an MBA). It would also provide all the apps of the App Store.
It would be quite the engineering feat to have a phone case that dissipates enough heat to keep a full size computer running cool enough to to beat a current MacBook Air on any kind of sustained load. Not saying it is impossible but integrating a good enough heat sink to the case that works to remove heat when docked that doesn’t also burn your hand when using it standalone would be pretty difficult. Until someone does that engineering, in no way is an iPhone A12 faster than a MacBook Air core-i5 under load.
The "computer" you speak of is already in the iPhone and it has no problems with heat. And the A12 is already faster than the I5 -- especially the low power one in the MBA.
Again, under load it is not going to be faster. A core-i5 in a MBA can dissipate 7 watts sustained with good cooling. An A12 is estimated to be 5 watts under load. You can’t really sustain that on a phone because you can’t dissipate the heat over the longer term. It is just physics.
Apple can clearly make a laptop class version of their A-series chips (e.g. the A12X in an iPad Pro) but it isn’t going to work efficiently in a iPhone case.
That sounds logical. But the theory has been refuted -- likely because the I5 and A12 are totally different architectures. The A12 is not a low power I5.
Looks pretty terrible to me. Computer option for phones though, I like the thought. So if the phone is $1000, and the dock with the screen is what, $500? Even at half the price of the cheapest Macbook it would seem pretty expensive.
How? $1500 for a combo vs $2000 for a phone and a cheap MacBook.
Comments
So, why is it ridiculous?
Why should Apple keep things quarantined?
We have come a long way toward integrating multiple devices, and I'd like to see that concept continue. I'd like a consumer version of a macOS feature that allows me to see a virtual representation of my iOS devices. Yes, I can install XCODE or some developer tools, but I'm not a developer. Launch the app from my dock, and see a window that looks like my iPad or iPhone where ever it is...then be able to interface with it using my mac. Handy.
The "computer" you speak of is already in the iPhone and it has no problems with heat. And the A12 is already faster than the I5 -- especially the low power one in the MBA.
Patents are way too often about ideas, not designs. You should definitely not be awarded a patent for anything close to resembling an idea as ideas are not even worth 2 cents. You can already tell that multiple people in this comment stream have thought of the idea, and that should be an indicator of how unpatentable it should be.
The idea of a phone powering a tablet or a phone powering a laptop or a phone powering a desktop has already been tried. It’s in various forms of shipping products (like Dex or the Moto thing from 10 years ago), or was tried and failed on the market with real hardware. Eg, Asus already tried with their Transformer PadFone Fonepad Megatron series (joking about Megatron part), where they had a tablet accessory that the phone slotted into to power the tablet. It also had a keyboard accessory that the tablet accessory with phone attached to turn it into a laptop. It failed in the market.
Heck, Microsoft’s Surface Studio, Surface Book, Surface Pro with hinge, Surface Duo (dual screen clamshell), all those design ideas have existed in various Apple patents and patent applications from 8 to 10 years ago. The ideas aren’t hard to come up with. Apple had tablet concepts with multiple hinge designs before abandoning it for the shipping product. Having a successful product on other hand is quite difficult. The patent system currently gets this all backwards by awarding ideas, not actual designs or engineering.
Heat and fit could still be a problem though, but allow me to propose some feats of engineering:
Good points!
I suspect something like this would, in the end, tend to be a third party product more than an Apple product. But then its limitations would be in software and interfacing to the external keyboard. It would be better if the iPhone could run iPad OS -- but that's where the complications for third party solutions come in.
This concept is eerily similar to something Palm attempted years ago, but I can't remember the device.
2017:
https://petapixel.com/2017/03/25/apple-patent-shows-iphone-turning-macbook/
That sounds logical. But the theory has been refuted -- likely because the I5 and A12 are totally different architectures. The A12 is not a low power I5.