The size of our devices are stuck at something of a bottleneck. We can’t exactly make them smaller because they’re so reliant on large, easily visible displays. So, the industry makes do, and makes the devices thinner, which reduces overall size without compromising display size. One object standing in the way of even thinner laptops is the hinge, and Apple might have found a way to remove that from the design equation.
Yesterday, a new patent application was published that describes “flexible segments” that interlock to form a rigid material. The material used isn’t some kind of top-secret new wonder metal only found deep within Apple’s subterranean volcano lair, but rather a process that can take rigid material — such as plastic or metal — and can cut it in such a way to create the flexible segments. The flexible segmented hinge could bend at various degrees, but that depends on the segments being cut in different patterns.
Intriguing.
Comment on ZDNet, three years from now:
“Apple didn’t invent the hinge!”
Pair this with flexible OLED display, and you have the makings of the foldable iPad,
This is the kind of thing that annoys me when other companies claim to be more innovative than Apple. They innovate in every area of thier products.
linking to extremetech instead of original reporter
PatentlyApple is shameful. especially on a mac site.
pathetic.
LMBO! Yep. 😀
(makes mental note to not be the one to say that) haha
Sad to say, I’m sure it’ll happen, whether you say it or not.
You’re right. That’s why I laughed [literally].
Hey, Microsoft was able to stage a full advertising campaign focusing on something that Apple invented/pioneered – MagSafe and the SmartCover –> Surface Touch Cover.
CLICK
Eh…don’t agree there. Apple did not event the Surface Touch Cover. The Smart Cover isn’t very smart, for one, and has none of the features of the Touch Cover.
Magnetically attached power cable + magnetically attached cover.
Both create a CLICK sound, which was one of the features the Surface ads focused on.
Microsoft: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhjGachD5s8
Apple: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbl_6DmzO4g
This whole farce became even better, when just a little over a month after Microsoft paper-announced the Surface, this patent application showed up.
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20120194448.pdf
My iPad cover doesn’t make a click sound unless it is on. The cover isn’t clicking, the device is.
Just feels weird for you to claim Microsoft copied Apple when Surface cover is miles ahead on functionality. Whether it is better or not is subjective but an advertising campaign on something Apple invented? Eh.
You do know Apple only iterated on someone else’s product, right?
http://johncblandii.com/2011/08/the-smart-cover-another-apple-non-innovation.html
The interesting thing about the SmartCover was something the InCase cover lacked – magnets in the cover AND the iPad!
There have been covers that attached via plastic frames you attached to your device prior to the InCase cover – tho not necessarily for tablets (maybe that was because there were none like the iPad^^), but for smartphones and other portable devices.
Being able to detach the cover with as little effort as possible (but enough to securely hold it to the iPad) was/is awesome.
If your iPad doesn’t make a clicking sound, you need to get your ears checked.
I don’t mean from the loudspeakers (which it does too) but from metal meeting metal.
Watch the ad that Apple used to introduce the SmartCover on stage at the iPad 2 keynote, there’s a clicking sound EIGHT times.
Together with th FLAPP sound of the cover touching the glass surface when being closed, it creates the audio for the ad.
Now watch the Surface ad that i also posted.
Shown 15 months after Apple released the SmartCover and the ad focuses on what? The sound the Touch Cover makes when it’s attached to the Surface.
And you’ll have to agree that the Touch Cover is more closely related to the SmartCover than to the InCase cover, due to the way how it’s attached – which is design the way Apple means it – not how it looks but how it works – incluencing how it is used.
Also, please see the patent applications i linked to, released shortly after the Surface (+ Touch Cover) was announced but filed 10 months prior to the Surface announcement.
“The Smart Cover isn’t very smart”
it changes shapes as you need it to serve different purposes, and it has no kludgey connectors to wear down or break. thats smart.
the MS cover is quite clearly a copy of it. except it doesnt even change shapes.
Yes, Apple made it detachable and added magnets to the device/cover. That’s the epitome of an iteration.
There is a flap sound but not a click. The click is a device noise.
By smart I mean it doesn’t have any technology built into it. It has magnets and folds.
I LOVE the cover, don’t get me wrong, but you won’t convince me Apple invented it [iterated a previous design] and I definitely won’t agree Microsoft patented a copy.
If you want to change this conversation to the new Asus cover for the new Nexus 7, I’d agree wholeheartedly. 😉
http://www.androidcentral.com/nexus-7-2013-official-premium-cover