Apple has filed for a patent (number 202000249725) for “peripheral housing for a computing device.” It involves a multi-functional iPad accessory that can serve as a stand, a handle, and an Apple Pencil holder, as well as providing a lot for inserting an external keyboard.
In the patent filing, Apple says the components of computing devices, including housings for computing devices, can be designed or formed for specific purposes. Large or bulky components have traditionally been needed to achieve a desired level of performance in a computing device, such as a desired amount of memory or a desired level of computing power. And for a computing device including a display such as the iPad and iPad Pro, the configuration or orientation of the display with respect to the housing may have been constrained by these and other needs.
However, recent advances in computing devices have provided for the miniaturization or reduction in size of the components. Apple’s idea it to prove a peripheral with “additional or enhanced device functionality.”
Here’s Apple’s summary (which is heavy in tech speak) of the patent filing: “A computing device can include a housing including a peripheral housing defining an aperture, the peripheral housing having a constant cross-sectional area. The computing device can also include a display having a first major surface and a second major surface opposing the first major surface, the display disposed within the aperture defined by the peripheral housing and attached to the housing at one or more locations such that the first major surface and the second major surface of the display are substantially unobstructed by any other portion of the computing device.”
