Bending, flexible display for large-screen Macs

Alongside flexible screens for iPhones and iPads, Apple has been researching how to make displays for the Mac that automatically adjust on the fly to give you the best view while you fidget in your office chair.

This is not about a future MacBook Pro that consists entirely of a foldable display, nor stretchable screens. Instead, it’s a larger-scale device, most probably — but not definitely — for a Mac.

All of the identifiable illustrations in a newly-revealed patent application just called “Display Device,” are of an iMac. But the descriptions speak equally of a large display that is flexible, or can made smaller for storage or convenient viewing.

“Some display screens are large to allow for comfortable viewing,” says the patent application. “To allow for convenient storage when not in use, folding display screens have been proposed.”

But the folding or bending is to be at least partly controlled by “one or more processors configured to determine a content location… and to display a content item on the flexible display screen according to [it].”

“The content location is determined,” it continues, “such that the content item is viewable from the location of the subject.” In this case the subject is the user, and “one or more sensors” identify where the user is.

One clear application of this proposal starts with having a large, curved screen display, perhaps for working at a device like a Mac. But then should the user move away from the screen, that will certainly be detected, and it may be that the display bends itself to become a flat one.

That would then make this display be optimal for watching video on. So the one screen could provide the best options for the most common uses of the display of a Mac — or maybe of other devices.

It seems a bit overkill to have it automatically adjust, Transformers-like, just because you got up to get a coffee. And you might want to rethink where you mount your display-top webcam if it’s going to shift about like this.

Apple describes all of this as being for a screen that has two configurations, though, and says they are the deployed and the storage ones.

“In the deployed configuration, the flexible display screen is expanded in width and visual presence, and may be configured to allow viewing of an entirety of the flexible display screen from a single viewing location,” says the patent application.

One further possibility is that several rigid panels could fold back into a storage position — image credit: Apple

Yet it’s not that the stored version is to go into some box or bag. “In the stored configuration, the spatial footprint o f the flexible display screen is compacted, such as by bending or folding,” but it appears the screen would still be an active, viewable display.

As always with a patent application, the focus of the document’s 7,500 words is on detail such as the use of actuators to facilitate the movement. It’s also written to make the patent application’s claims be as broad as possible to help in any future legal issues.

What it isn’t, is very long on descriptions of use cases. As well as describing the sensors and the different configurations, it also allows that applications could trigger the change. So maybe quitting Microsoft Word and launching the Apple TV app could make the screen alter.

There is just always the possibility, though, that this is not for a Mac — despite the illustrations. There are references to a base that should reminiscent of the stand for the Apple Studio Display, but that base appears to be optional.

It doesn’t seem likely that Apple can mean for this to be a wall-mounted display, not when it speaks both of bending and storage. But perhaps scaled down, the same technology proposals could apply to the expected future Smart Home Hub, or HomePod with a screen.

The patent application is credited to four inventors. They include Danny L. McBroom, whose previous work includes his being on the team involved in the cylindrical design of the 2019 Mac Pro.