Apple Revamping MacBook Air With ‘Thinner’ Body, New Materials

Apple’s MacBook Air might be one of the thinnest laptops in existence, but it seems that the Cupertino tech giant wants to make it thinner than ever.

A new patent reveals Apple’s plans to give future MacBook Air models thinner bodies made out of new materials. The patent, first spotted by Patently Apple, describes that the new devices will have thin casings made out of fiber composite materials and will feature organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays. The patent was recently published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The patent “Electronic devices with thin display housings” explained that tech companies face challenges when mounting display panels on electronic devices such as laptop computers. If a device’s frame isn’t robust enough, for example, the display could flex or get damaged. Using overly robust casings, on the other hand, results in the device becoming less handy and unattractive.

Apple’s patent reveals the tech company’s plan to deal with these challenges. The patent described that the said devices could have a housing that have portions joined by hinges. This housing can be made using rigid materials such as metal or fiber-composite material.

An OLED display panel , which could be very thin, can then be mounted to a planar wall of the housing using an adhesive layer. The display panel can then be covered with a cover layer - that acts as some sort of protection - also using an adhesive layer. The adhesive layers, which can be optically transparent, may be rigid to enhance the device’s stiffness, adding to its durability.

The housing could have portions that extend orthogonally from the planar wall to cover the edges of the display, adding to the stiffness of the housing.

The patent states that the material used for the housing could be carbon fiber with a “woven fabric,” Patently Apple noted. The patent said “the carbon fibers are fibers in a woven fabric and wherein the carbon-fiber composite material includes a polymer binder in which the woven fabric is embedded.”

This housing, which could be made of the aforementioned material, could also contain carbon-fiber composite material, fiberglass, and/or other fiber composites.

Using these materials, Apple’s patent states that the portion of the housing that includes the display could have a total thickness of 2mm. The current MacBook Air is 15.6mm thick, tapering to 4.1mm at its narrowest point. The new technology described in the patent could lower the MacBook Air’s maximum thickness.