Today I was watching the Virgo video review of the new MacBook Air M2. It was here that I learned that the new MacBook Air abandoned its traditional speaker grids for audio. I may have seen it during the presentation of WWDC22, but I didn’t realize it at the time we covered Apple’s patent application on this feature earlier this year.
Apple’s marketing material states that the “MacBook Air also includes a four-speaker sound system. To suit such a slim design, the speakers and microphones are fully integrated between the keyboard and the screen, all at the same time. they offer an even better audio experience. A three-microphone array captures clean audio using advanced beam-forming algorithms, while the speakers produce improved stereo separation and vocal clarity. “
Patentally, Apple covered this new design feature in a January 27, 2022 patent application report entitled “Apple Inventes New Audio Architecture for Future MacBooks Under the Keyboard and Removes speaker grids “. You can check out the details of this report here. This is another complete patent that had no associated rumors. The only place for this revelation was at Apple’s patent filing.
The Apple FIG. 1 below illustrates a perspective view of an open MacBook; FIG. Figure 2 illustrates a side cross-sectional view of an exemplary keyboard assembly having a speaker arranged below.
The Apple FIG. 3 above illustrates a perspective view of a set of speakers attached to the chassis of a MacBook; FIG. 4 illustrates an enlarged view of the speaker assembly of FIG. 3.
It is worth repeating from time to time, that every time Apple introduces a new device, device feature or software, the only thing that is assured is that it has been patented, whether Patently Apple has covered it in a report or not. . Anything Apple introduces goes on the market without being patented or in the process of being patented, so the product is legally covered against trolls and patent imitators.