An Apple MacBook Air made of glass sounds like a fever dream, but it could be a reality much sooner than you think
Rumors that Apple wants to release Mac products made of glass aren’t new, but a new patent filing gives us new insight into how a MacBook Air made entirely of glass could work in practice.
According to a new report from Clearly apple, Apple has acquired two new patents recently, including one for a glass enclosure for a future MacBook Air that could feature a virtual keyboard and touchpad. Reports in 2023 indicated that it had patented a design for a iMac made from a glass plate also. Apparently Apple has been working on this design concept since 2011, and these new patents indicate that these aren’t just one-off ideas, but may be part of a trend that could one day see production.
The patents cover an electronic device enclosure that provides I/O functionality, meaning that the “user interface is part of the enclosure and the enclosure receives input and/or provides output to the device.” One or more surfaces of the enclosure are configured to accept or provide user input and output when the device and/or surface(s) are activated. The housing is therefore part of the system and not a separate mechanism.
Despite all the fancy technology that has gone into this glass body that should make it more fragile, the plan seems to be to encase and protect the internal components, while also looking nice.
This recent development would work nicely with an earlier patent covering finger devices, which would be “used with glass-topped keyboards to soften the pressure on the user’s fingers on a solid glass surface.”
A touch of luxury or a disaster waiting to happen?
While the concept of a glass MacBook Air and iMac sounds downright luxurious, this is clearly an idea that would work better as a proof of concept than as an actual product on the market.
The biggest and most obvious disadvantage of any technology made of glass is its degree of fragility. Maybe the glass iMac could work if it was made of something similar to what is used for windshields, because that would be really hard to break.
But the glass MacBook Air sounds like a recipe for disaster, not only for people with children and/or pets (imagine your two-year-old throwing it off a table), but also for adults with various motor disabilities who worry about it. can make. they could accidentally drop or otherwise damage such a delicate piece of technology.
It honestly sounds like a top luxury product aimed at the most affluent Apple buyers, especially since a product like this isn’t going to be extremely expensive by any means given the cutting-edge technology and quality of materials involved. And that’s not even counting the ten years of R&D costs that Apple would understandably like to recoup. .
Still, such devices would ultimately likely be catnip to Apple’s famously loyal fans, who would most likely buy these computers no matter how expensive or impractical they might be in practice, something Apple may well count on in the future. end.
