The press is reporting today on a patent filed in January by Apple for what amounts to a "convertible" iMac - Apple's line of large screen all-in-one desktop computers - that also functions as a giant desktop iPad. This sort of device is certainly inevitable, in one form or another. The evolution introduced to everyday computing by the iPhone and now being accelerated by Android devices, the iPad, and other tablet solutions would certainly evolve into our desktop computing experiences. It was simply a question of when - and how. With this patent application we're seeing one potential approach to implementing these next-generation solutions.

By Juhan Sonin (@jsonin) and Dirk Knemeyer (@dknemeyer)