Future MacBook or MacBook Pro models will likely feature a unibody design with a seamless, bendable hinge mechanism, allowing Apple to build them out of a single piece of material.
It will probably open like a regular MacBook Pro, but this potential future design will include a bendable hinge.
Following Apple's numerous patents for bendable and even scrollable screens for the iPhone and iPad, the company is also looking at how the MacBook Pro could benefit from a screen that can bend.
Instead of the current complex hinge mechanism that connects the screen to the body, Apple is working on a more flexible device.
U.S. Patent No. 10,642,318, an Apple patent titled "Flat Hinge Assembly," describes how such a design would fit into a MacBook Pro-style device.
The patent shows that a personal computing device includes a monolithic body having a seamless overall appearance, the monolithic body including a bendable portion that is capable of having a smooth, curved shape.
The first part of the MCU body includes a display device capable of presenting visual content, and a second part capable of carrying input actions and input devices.
Apple's patented idea for this is that the MacBook Pro, or other devices, can be made on a flat surface, and this monolithic body has a bendable part.
The bendable part still has to accommodate the electronics that currently connect the screen to the keyboard, and it must maintain mechanical communication capabilities, Apple's solution is to make the bendable structure a superposition of layers that can transition from an uncompressed state to a compressed state.
This patent Apple has a similar plan for a previous device, which presents two screens instead of a normal screen and keyboard. One can display, the other can simulate an input device.
Now, Apple also proposes in the patent that such an adjustable bendable structure could also include a bendable battery.
