Future MacBook Pros could ditch the keyboard in favor of a big foldable screen
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Apple is working on a 20-inch foldable screen, one that could take the form of a future MacBook Pro.
This is according to a report from a Korean site The Electric (opens in new tab) (spotted by MacRumors (opens in new tab)) claiming that industry sources believe Apple has just begun development of the display, so we’re apparently still in the very early stages of the project. The first prototype is based on a 20.25-inch OLED screen from an unspecified South Korean supplier.
As The Elec points out, that puts it in the laptop-sized category, as when folded it would give the user a 15.3-inch display, which would be very suitable for a MacBook Pro (it would be 20.25-inches fully unfolded).
However, don’t think that you will see this innovation anytime soon. According to the report, the target for production of such a 20-inch foldable is 2026 to 2027, so it’s still half a decade away from realization. If, of course, Apple doesn’t abandon the idea during prototyping and testing, which is the fate of quite a few potential hardware.
As the report also makes clear, it’s likely that Apple will want to use OLED (instead of LCD) screens on MacBooks and iPads before this foldable tablet arrives. The Elec believes that 2025 will be the year when a MacBook Pro equipped with an OLED screen will arrive, and that will be preceded by iPads with OLED in 2024, as previously rumored.
Analysis: you need to know when to hold them, know when to fold them…
For the uninitiated, a foldable laptop is one that’s really just a giant screen that folds down in the middle – like the Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED we saw at IFA earlier this year. In other words, the keyboard part is dropped to double the size of the screen – and the screen can then use a virtual keyboard of sorts for use as a laptop. But the screen can also be laid flat as one big screen, or used as a full 20-inch monitor on a desk with a mouse and keyboard, giving the device a lot of flexibility.
This isn’t the first time we’ve heard of a foldable MacBook either, and the rumor mill was talking about this possibility in early 2022. Indeed, that earlier speculation was based on Apple considering a 20-inch screen for this MacBook, with the arrival date locked in at 2026 or 2027.
So this latest report mirrors that exactly and gives it even more weight, but as always we have to be very skeptical of anything that is being whispered about the vine. Even if this is true at this point, Apple may shelve the project at some point in the future, especially given the very long development timeframe proposed here.
Five years is definitely an age in the tech world, but then again, the theoretical launch being so far in the future could be a good thing – at least in terms of the mechanical side of a huge folding screen being fleshed out in a better way . We’ve always been wary of foldable screens, and certainly seamless foldable screens that aren’t just two screens (with a really thin bezel in between), but given enough time for technical progress, maybe Apple could produce a really slick screen and do it well designed foldable MacBook Pro. (Let’s just try not to think about previous innovations that didn’t work out so well, like the butterfly keyboard, for example).
The broader question might be: do we really want a foldable MacBook Pro? Here at TechRadar, we’ve argued in the past that this seems like a pretty crazy idea for several reasons, not the least of which is that any virtual keyboard will be a much worse typing experience than a physical deck. On the other hand, maybe haptics will come a long way in half a decade, but this all seems a bit of a gamble in terms of the rumor coming to fruition.
Still, you never know, and with this speculation popping up twice this year, the folding MacBook Pro may really be a concept that Apple is seriously evaluating for the future.