Apple may offer an accessory in the future that allows an iPhone and iPad or two iPads to connect, with one iPad as the display for the joined unit, and the other as a dynamic keyboard.
Apple files new patent
Currently, people who are use iPads and the iPad Pro instead of a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro have to carry around an extra keyboard accessory. The keyboard enables them to work on their device using a Bluetooth keyboard, instead of having to use the on-screen keyboard. For example, one of the keyboard accessories Apple offers for the iPad Pro, the Magic Keyboard, allows users to take advantage of the whole display the device offers by simply connecting a keyboard to the iPad.
In a patent granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday titled “Modular multiple display electronic devices,” the Cupertino tech giant suggests a solution to this problem via a new, more easily portable accessory. The extra hardware would consist of sections that attach to the side of a mobile device, complete with some type of a connector, and a hinged element. The connecter would facilitate data transfers between the two devices, allowing users to work across multiple displays as if it was one system.
Images in the patent essentially suggest the idea of a notebook-style arrangement, with one device flat on a surface and the hinged connector propping up the second mobile device upward, In landscape orientation, the lower device could act as a keyboard for the upper device.
Apart from providing an extra work surface, the data connection can allow for file transfers and other items to be communicated between the two devices seamlessly, as well as allowing the sharing of resources, like the camera, for example.
Apple has expressed an interest in using mobile devices as alternate inputs before. Such as in the patent it filed in 2018, “Dual display equipment with enhanced visibility and suppressed reflections” that proposed a bendable display being used, with one screen that could function as a keyboard.
via AppleInsider
