If you’re of the view that life’s too short to fetch your own take-out food, you’ll probably appreciate anything that speeds up the ordering process too – which is why Grubhub and Seamless now offer Apple Pay in the iOS apps. TechCrunch estimates that using Apple Pay instead of a credit card will save you about a minute per order …
The US Patent & Trademark Office today published a new Apple patent application (via PatentlyApple) that details a flexible material that could be used as a hinge to create a seamless enclosure for devices like the MacBook, for example. Apple details a technical process of using specialized machinery to laser cut “flex apertures” and interlocking features in a rigid material to allow it to bend and function as a hinge. On top of creating a seamless enclosure, Apple claims the process would allow it to reduce the size of devices that are often increased due to traditional hinge solutions. Imagine if the enclosure of a MacBook didn’t include that black plastic hinge and instead appeared to be a seamless piece of aluminium connecting the display to the bottom half of the unibody.
While MacBooks might seem like the obvious application for Apple’s invention, it also notes the usual list of devices that could potentially use the technology including everything from smartphones to televisions and game consoles. The patent also shows the material being used on headphone cables to allow a flexible connection from the cable to the earbud to prevent damage, and on what appears to be an iPad Smart Cover-like accessory:
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If your desk looks anything like mine, seen above, then you probably know the joys of constantly connecting and disconnecting a handful of cables every time you need to move your MacBook away from your desk or put it back. In my case, I have to fiddle with these cables every few hours when I take my MacBook downstairs to work in the living room or bring it back upstairs to plug it into my monitor. I hate it.
The ZenDock, which hit Kickstarter today, promises to help eliminate most of this problem for me, and from the looks of it, the folks at ZenBoxx might just be on to something. The ZenDock comes in two varieties: Pro and Retina. As you might imagine, the names correspond to the MacBook model that the dock is designed to work with.