Yesterday the Mac press was abuzz with a new patent filing from Apple regarding an iMac-like notebook docking station. While many companies patent ideas just to prove to shareholders that they are innovating, many seem to believe that this patent is indicative of things to come next week at MacWorld Expo.
I am not convinced, although the idea seems intriguing. Having a laptop that can dock behind a large monitor could allow Apple to sell more monitors and make MacBooks more attractive to potential customers who want to enjoy more screen real estate at their usual workplace. It is an incremental improvement over existing solutions. The problem is that Apple rarely settles for incremental improvements, they tend to prefer radical new designs. So, what if that laptop was not really a laptop but instead an Internet tablet, a larger iPhone if you prefer. This device would work as a standard Macintosh computer when docked and as a portable internet device when used as a stand-alone product.
I have been thinking about how such a device would work and it is clear to me that in order to save energy, this dual personality is required. When docked, the processor could run faster and be refrigerated efficiently using any of the technologies described in the patent. Undocked, with the processor running at lower frequencies, no refrigeration would be required, just like in the case of the iPhone. However, customers are not likely to accept a device that runs their existing Mac applications slower when on the move. That is why such a device would need to behave as a “super-iPhone” with a multi-touch UI and not as a Mac when not connected to the dock. This may seem a weird idea. After all, the reason we buy laptops is to have our computers with us at all time, right? Yes, but most of us do not use our laptop the same way at home or at the office as we do while traveling. At the office I generally create content, outside I display content. That means that I usually need more horsepower at the office than outside. In fact, I would argue that if that such a device allowed me to display presentations, read digital books, browse the Internet, watch videos, listen to my music and update my blog, that would cover most of my needs while on the go. Sure, I would lack the capability to work on my projects with XCode at a Starbucks but that is something most users do not care about. The nice thing about such a design is that it could transform tablet users into Mac users with just the purchase of the dock (which would presumably be optional).
So, can such a device be built today? Sure, if you open a laptop you will see that it does not contain much circuitry. Most of the space is used by the HDD, the optical drive and the keyboard which can be replaced by flash memory, eliminated and substituted by an on-screen equivalent respectively. The question is if such a device would be successful with customers. I am not sure, while early adopters would probably rush to buy such a product, this concept still represents a major paradigm shift and Apple would need to educate the market on how to use such a device, which is both difficult and costly. That is why I do not believe that such a device will be introduced by Steve Jobs on January 15. However, you never know…
January 4th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
I would buy such a modular product if it were sold with a desktop base with someway to accelerate the graphics and provide more storage and a second fixed monitor.
The Unit should also have the option of hinging with a mobile base for those times when you might need a keyboard, additional harddrives, optical drive, more ports and access to AC power for recharging while on the go.
January 4th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
.. educate the market on how to use … difficult and costly? Excite with cool demo at MWSF, let press/blogs write (advertise) about the coolness, throw that dude in the black sweater in front of a camera as before (iPhone edudemos) so we’ll like (and want) what we see, and advertise as any new product on tv/print (with iPod, iPhone, Touch, (AppleTV2?))… sounds about par for the course. I hope this combo iPhone/iMac is a reality as it sounds like the ultimate iPro.