iPhone MacBook Hybrid – Apple Patent Application (2017) | Hacker News Reader

iPhone MacBook Hybrid – Apple Patent Application (2017)

pdfaiw.uspto.gov

41 pointstosh38 comments

Just a reminder of how some patents are BS. No serious R&D went into this. And I don't mean this as the standard anti-patent response. Look over the application, look at the diagrams, read the text. It's a joke.

I wonder if companies ever put in patents just to throw competitors off the scent or give them dumb ideas to follow, knowing they’re not viable. Like how the USA leaked Space Shuttle plans to the USSR that wouldn’t fly.

I know of at least one famous CEO who told me he goes to tech conferences as a guest speaker/panelist and gives out blatantly false information just to throw competitors in the wrong direction.

He's almost certainly wasting more of his own time than anyone else's.

It’s ok, he has plenty of time to waste anyway

More likely it's a blanket policy of "patent everything even remotely patentable, just in case".

Some companies (not sure about Apple) offer patent incentives to employees. Our CTO once bragged about having 150 patents. An engineer in my org decided to show him up and had 150 filed within 2 years. I think the incentives probably doubled his base salary and I guarantee none of the patents are useful or will be used.

The way I've described it, and someone working in tech patents confirmed, is that you patent to the point that it's a Mexican standoff between all the players.

I don't know what the patent process is in Apple, but I've been part of the patent process at other large tech companies in similar spaces to Apple. They tend to have patent comittees that have senior staff from across the organisation. A patent is complex in terms of its value, on the one hand the organisation must be seen to file enough patents to hit their targets and look 'innovative' (spoiler: no patents are innovative) but any patent costs a tonne to go through the lawyers. There's also a non-trivial bonus for filing a patent (those good at gaming the system- oh sorry, no I mean the most innnovative engineers- can double their salary using patents).

I find it very difficult to understand how this patent would've escaped Apple's internal processes as anything other than an attempt to confuse poeple or as a defensive patent. For me, I think the defense explanation makes the most sense, Apple doesn't want to be in a position where a method of plugging an iPhone into a macbook is patented by anyone but themslves. No need to worry that the iPhone is actually thicker than the laptop they think it's going to fit inside.

I built something very similar to this years ago. seriously.

http://systems.cs.columbia.edu/files/wpid-compsac2006-fordis...

i.e. storing a checkpoint/restartable a linux desktop container on one device and being able to move them to run on another more powerful device when its available (and checkpointing back to the device when one wants to leave the more powerful computer)

I then worked on IBM Research's "SoulPad" that did a similar thing, but just checkpoint / restarting a VM.

Heck, I even tried to pitch in interviews with Microsoft, Apple and Google that they should go in this direction (didn't get the jobs). i.e. your mobile device becomes your "permanent" computer, but you can connect it to more powerful devices at home / work where your processes can run. Applications would be written to be "device" aware, so could dynamically change their UI if being used on a phone, tablet or desktop, as all 3 have different requirements for the best UX experience.

This isn't a patent. It's an application. (Can @dang fix the title?)

It was granted 2018-09-11.

https://patents.google.com/patent/US20170083048A1/en

Previous non-discussions:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13953805

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13939894

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13939020

This looks great. I already have a $1000 computer in my pocket all I need is a screen and a keyboard. The problem? Apple will charge $1000 for it so I could just as well get a decent laptop instead of one that is just a hole in a keyboard. So, this was me complaining about prices for product that's just a patent sketch.

I feed off people complaining about Apple's prices.

I actually crave it.

It's like blood to a vampire or candy and soda to a fat kid.

Thank you.

Motorola built something similar: https://www.digitaltrends.com/buying-guides/a-complete-guide...

The perspective of the iPhone and cavity is completely off and especially unsightly in the picture with the phone attached.

It is also not great for the touchpad either.

I thought modern patent drawings would be done in some sort of CAD program. So why the lines that mimics a fineliner and why the off perspective? (and why the shoddy work in the first place?)

You don’t need to put your trade secrets into the patent drawings.

Patent applications are really specific in the required style and content. I don't know the specific requirements for drawings, but this is the common style there.

Really cool. The iPhone replaces the touchpad since it already has a great touchscreen. The MacBook can be much more affordable because it doesn't need CPU/GPU/memory/wifi/bluetooth anymore (assuming if it uses a wired connection to communicate with the MacBook).

There is also an iPad / MacBook hybrid listed on later pages. Apple didn't go this route but the new iPad keyboard https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MXQU2LL/A/magic-keyboard-... is heavier and more complex than ever before.

This is exactly how other companies did it.

The Razer project linda has the phone as touchpad.

https://www.razer.com/projectlinda

Razer actually did this with Android: https://www.razer.com/projectlinda

I don't see this as THE next major phase of macOS development. Reason being Samsung Dex already does this with HDMI cable. Current design mentioned in the application pairs phone in a socket. This gives a problem when you want to upgrade either the phone or laptop. However, this type of pairing a powerful phone with a dumb display we are going to see more often. not in the way apple depicted here though.

with recent developments like iPadOS as well as mouse/trackpad support something like this seems more viable than ever before (in a sense iPad + Magic Keyboard is already a thing)

I just realized the iPhones do have keyboard support but no support for the iPadOS pointers yet afaiu (there is some support via accessibility settings though)

Also there are some proof of concept hybrids out there like https://nexdock.com/ and https://www.zdnet.com/product/hp-elite-x3-lap-dock/

Cool, I guess?

My gut reaction though is that this would be one step closer to a world where we're running iOS instead of macOS and we don't really have computers anymore.

No more terminal (unless you pay $4/month for the terminal app! that's a pro feature), no more editors (but you can use this great cloud-based editor for the price of your personal data), no more running your own apps on your own device without paying the Apple Developer fee every year.

I don't know. Maybe that's far-fetched. But it seems increasingly possible, and it'd be a sad day if it ever happens.

> My gut reaction though is that this would be one step closer to a world where we're running iOS instead of macOS and we don't really have computers anymore.

Sadly you're probably right. On the other hand a modern iPhone is more than fast enough to run macOs, so you never know. An Apple version of the Samsung Dex would be pretty sweet https://www.samsung.com/us/explore/dex/

Why wouldn't it run in the appropriate mode based on usage? Full OSX when docked, iOS when undocked?

MS demo'd something back in the day with Windows Phone which I thought would be awesome. I thought one laptop MFG had actually productized it but I can't find it.

I think it's more likely they'd gut the ability to run access the local device via terminal altogether. You'd have the usual array of third-party apps which you can access remote machines via SSH, but not your iPhone/MacBook hybrid.

Also you could have it so that if you connect an external mouse, the iPhone/trackpad behaves as a touch bar with context aware items.

This is literally just a sleeker/modernized version of the PowerBook Duo / Dock [1]. What's old is new again.

They were actually really cool, the motorized mechanism that accepted the Duo into the Dock just felt really smooth / sturdy / elegant.

[1] https://everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_duo/specs/mac_p...

Would you mind elaborating on this a bit? I’m curious and that link doesn’t provide a ton of deeper detail. Does this extend the RAM of the laptop you dock in it? Or is it just peripherals?

This is not a patent; it is an application for one. The USPTO hasn't granted it yet, and it may decide not to at all.

Yes please. Or simply proper apps and multitasking making use of the HDMI out and a mouse/key

I feel like we are so close to this with SideCar, it’s not at all perfect but a couple of people on my team also have iPads and we’ve been getting away with some great brainstorming sessions drawing on our pads and throwing the sketches into slack once the meeting is over.

I tried one of the terminal emus, the one with alpine. Ish I think. But it didn’t do what I wanted.. and in reality, I only need a terminal and some compilers/vms. It will come.. But hopefully without too much cloud requirements

Agreed fully on the last notion there. I’ve come across so many great pieces of software that I think “oh this would fit my workflow just nicely!” but then the other shoe drops when I see it requires a signup to their service and their cloud to use a native desktop application that talks to a non-proprietary TCP based protocol.

E.g. some of the most interesting replacement MacOS email clients requires signing up to their “service” so I can use an IMAP client to talk to my work’s Exchange through a mail client. No. Absolutely not.

Wasn’t the Ubuntu phone supposed to be a dockable computer?

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