Is Apple Working On A Dual Display MacBook?

Apple could be working on a MacBook with two displays, one of which can be used to feature a virtual keyboard, a new patent shows.

Apple's MacBooks all make use of a physical keyboard for inputting words, numbers and more. The company has released a variety of keyboards through the years, but regardless of the mechanism utilized – whether it's the infamous butterfly mechanism or the more reliable scissor mechanism – they are still physical keyboards.

The company also makes keyboard accessories for its iPads. The latest and most feature-rich of these is the Magic Keyboard for the 2020 iPad Pro. This accessory comes with a trackpad, allowing users to do more things on their Apple tablet. Despite its new features and more reliable mechanism, it still is a physical keyboard like those on the MacBooks.

A new patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, however, indicates that Apple is looking into creating a future MacBook with dual displays. These displays will be used for both input and output purposes, with one of them being used for a virtual keyboard.

The patent, aptly titled “Housing as an I/O device,” described a portable computing device that has a housing that could be used for both input and output. Several embodiments were described, but all of them showed ways for users to be able to input commands to the device.

Two illustrations show a “portable computing device having a virtual keyboard in accordance with an embodiment.”

These images show that the future MacBook, even a future iPad Pro, will allow users to provide input by tapping on keys or buttons shown on the screen – just like how users provide input on a smartphone's virtual keyboard. One such image can be seen below.

Physical keyboards are capable of providing users with tactile feedback thanks to their mechanical nature. Users can feel the keys as they press them, and the keys themselves make sounds and spring right back up after being pressed. The virtual keyboard shown in the patent, on the other hand, will be able to provide feedback using haptic feedback.

The patented device can be best imagined via Microsoft's delayed Surface Neo, which was revealed last year, Patently Apple noted. A smaller, Android-powered smartphone version of this device, the Surface Duo, is believed to be coming soon.