A Foldable Mac Is Years Away, but Apple Is Still Working on It
Apple is still developing a foldable Mac, 9to5Mac reports, but the device is years away and the project is not cancelled.
According to the publication, Apple has long faced reports and rumors of a foldable clamshell device that could be an iPad, a Mac, both, or a hybrid of the two. A recent report said that the project, once a priority for new CEO John Ternus, had been scrapped. 9to5Mac said that description is not entirely accurate, and suggested the first-generation product may have simply been put on the back burner.
The report reasons that the idea of a hybrid Mac and iPad has largely been overtaken by events. iPhone and iPad apps run on current Macs, iPhone mirroring can achieve similar results, and the operating systems are increasingly converging. Apple, the report notes, is long past arguing that it was merging a toaster and a refrigerator.
Nevertheless, 9to5Mac says Apple will eventually produce an all-screen foldable Mac once a soft keyboard can serve as a viable replacement for a hard one. That is not expected to happen anytime soon. The author predicts an intermediate step of dynamic hardware keyboards. It points to the Sonder Keyboard, an early attempt using miniature e-ink displays to remap key labels and functions depending on the active application.
The longer-term goal is a fully soft keyboard. The article invokes Steve Jobs's justification for virtual keys on the iPhone and applies it to Mac keyboards. It identifies three problems with soft keyboards: glass surfaces are uncomfortable to type on, tactile feedback from key movement is missing, and touch typists need to feel keys before pressing them.
The report says Apple has patents aimed at solving each issue. One approach uses a flexible display that deforms when a virtual key is pressed. Haptic motors can simulate key movement, and an electrostatic charge can make a flat surface feel as though physical keys are present. The article also cites 2023 research at Carnegie Mellon University that created 1.5-millimeter-thick embedded electroosmotic pumps, which can generate pop-up buttons beneath a flexible surface in about a second.
9to5Mac compares the evolution to Mac trackpads, which have sounded and felt mechanical for years but are actually solid-state devices using haptics to simulate clicks. The report predicts soft keyboards will reach a similar level of sophistication, allowing a clamshell Mac keyboard to adapt to each application and to unfold into a large display when needed. For now, the project appears delayed rather than dead.