Apple has a patented lock system that prevents physical access to MacBooks. Future MacBook Air and MacBook Pro could use a sophisticated magnetic closure designed to prevent strangers from opening the lid when the user walks away, for example leaving the computer on a desk.
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This is what emerges from a patent found in the US Patent Office by the PatentlyApple website. Portable Macs have always used magnets in the screen frame to close the lid, a “trick” that prevents unwanted opening of the display in the bag. In Apple’s patent, the magnetic closure is even more advanced: a mechanism that locks the display in the rest position but requires a specific action from the owner to unlock.
In the patent, Apple describes magnetic latches to be coupled to a “rotational magnetic field”; according to the lines of force involved, the magnetic closure can be locked or unlocked.
In the drawings attached to the patent, you can see magnets arranged on the outside of the laptop chassis and other magnets placed between the edges; these allow opening only after the owner’s “authorization”, an action that could be activated with biometric recognition mechanisms (e.g. with a sensor such as Touch ID or similar, placed on the external casing), with the magnets that “release ” opening only after user recognition.
As always, we remember that Apple patents hundreds of patents annually and what is registered at the Patent Office does not always turn into actual products.