Microsoft Surface, Meet Apple iSurface

[wraggster]

"Responding to Microsoft's Windows 8 efforts, Apple CEO Tim Cook insisted in late April that combining a tablet and a notebook would be like converging a toaster and a refrigerator (http://www.geekwire.com/2012/apple-ceo-mixing-tablets-notebooks-means-tradeoffs/). But a patent application submitted by Apple last year — and made public Tuesday morning — proposes marrying a tablet and a keyboard to create 'a true laptop alternative,' whichGeekWire notes looks a lot like Microsoft Surface (http://www.geekwire.com/2012/apple-patent-filing-lot-microsoft-surface/) (comparison pic (http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8147/7701603374_c436128aa8_b.jpg)). In its patent filing, Apple describes various ways that a tablet's cover could be used as an I-O device — as a tactile-feedback keyboard ('word processing and email become much more efficient'), to display additional output, as a touchpad replacement, and even to receive stylus input. 'The experience,' claims Apple, 'is even better in some ways than the laptop experience.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/08/03/2328236/microsoft-surface-meet-apple-isurface