Apple Wants to Bring MagSafe Back as Another Dongle

Apple’s latest MacBook Pro is super light-weight and features a bounty of innovations including USB-C connectivity, however those improvements come at the expense of MagSafe, which is arguably one of our most beloved features of MacBooks past.

A truly thoughtful and safe way to prevent trips and falls and collateral damage to our machines, MagSafe was an awesome feature that allowed the power cable to simply snap into and out of place, tightly held to the machine by a powerful magnetic force to dichotomously prevent the cable from either being dislodged with ease, or causing damage to your machine (or the people around it).

Much to the dismay of MacBook Pro fans, however, MagSafe has been phased out as Apple has sought to slim down its notebook computers and replace use-specific ports with universal ports like USB-C, which allows for the transferring of data, video, and power. Most users loved MagSafe though, which is perhaps why a few third-party accessory-maker’s have sought to capitalize on the fact that it’s gone for good… Or is it?

If a patent that was published last week by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office is to be taken seriously, it would appear that Apple has a plan to perhaps resurrect MagSafe, after all — albeit in a slightly different capacity. Apple’s patent, No. 20170093104, suggests that the company is at least entertaining the possibility of bringing MagSafe back in the form of a dongle, which would essentially embody a MagSafe-to-USB-C converter of sorts, as you can see from the patent image below.

While MagSafe has historically been a MacBook-only feature since its debut in January, 2006, Apple’s patent appears to suggest that its MagSafe dongle wouldn’t be limited to just laptops. Theoretically speaking, Apple could create a whole new series of male-end MagSafe dongles, such as MagSafe-to-USB-A, MagSafe-to-Lightning, and even MagSafe-to-microUSB for compatibility with previous-generation laptops, iPhone or iPad, and a plethora of other mobile devices, respectively.

 “Embodiments of the present invention may provide adapters that may connect to connector receptacles on various types of devices, such as portable computing devices, tablet computers, desktop computers, laptops, all-in-one computers, wearable computing devices, cell phones, smart phones, media phones, storage devices, portable media players, navigation systems, monitors, power supplies, adapters, remote control devices, chargers, and other devices,” Apple’s patent filing reads, in part.

While it would certainly be awesome to see MagSafe make a comeback, the technology facilitated by a dongle would obviously require a bit more engineering if its to work even remotely close to how effectively it did on previous-generation MacBooks.