The current MacBook Pro has one main display and a Touch Bar, but Apple wants to add three more screens to make it a laptop with five displays.

According to MyFixGuide, China's State Intellectual Property Office approved the patent today, June 30. This is another patent that suggests what Apple could do with the free space on laptops around the keyboard and trackpad, this time using a "dynamic display interface" that turns these free spaces into multiple small screens.

Based on the illustrations in the patent, these displays would play a similar role to what Apple is trying to do with the Touch Bar on the current MacBook, moving the toolbar off the main display and next to the user's hand for more convenient access.

The trackpad appears to be embedded beneath the top surface of the laptop, at least compared to the current MacBook's trackpad, which is slightly sunken, with no obvious sign of it. To compensate for this, the patent also details how tactile feedback could be added to the trackpad. This would allow users to know if they have strayed beyond the boundaries of the trackpad and to better sense how they are interacting with objects on the screen.

According to this patent, the keys themselves can also be backlit. While backlit keys may bring to mind the flashy RGB lighting of gamer peripherals, this may have a more practical use. Consider how the lights could help you type more efficiently by guiding your fingers to specific hotkey groups or key home rows (as shown in the patent).

Other laptop makers have some ideas of how this could work: Asus' ZenBook Pro Duo has a secondary display above the keyboard, and Microsoft's upcoming Surface Neo has a second identical virtual keyboard on top of the display. Since it is highly unlikely that users will abandon physical keyboards altogether in the next year or two, Apple's patent seems like a more sensible intermediate step.

While we wait for Apple to turn this patent into an actual product (if they do), we need to focus on other advances. As announced at the recent WWDC 2020, the MacBook will feature the latest version of MacOS, dubbed Big Sur. The new OS will offer a new menu design, widgets for frequently used functions, and upgrades to first-party apps like Messages and Safari.

The next MacBook will also feature Apple Silicon. This is the first processor designed from the ground up using ARM, rather than the Intel chipset Apple has used for years. And the first ARM-based Mac will be released this year.