While the focus here at MY iTablet has so far been primarily the glorious iPhone, our remit of course covers everything ultra-mobile produced by our Apple overlords.  One of the most persistent rumours in Mac-land has been the idea of a sub-notebook or even an Apple Tablet; yes, the ModBook promised the latter, but production delays and communication breakdowns have lost the company behind it a whole lot of credibility to a consumer base used to a clear and dependable message.  And so we’re back to waiting for an official product from Apple themselves, a product that might be one step closer with the company’s patent for an ultra-low profile RAM memory slot.

Why is that important?  Well, you can shrink a motherboard down so much, but soon the interconnects between discrete components starts to have a significant impact on the overall size of a gadget.  What Apple have patented is a slot-load memory upgrade, rather than the top-down format usually found in notebooks; it would ease placement of the RAM slot since the full chip would no longer need to be accessible at a point right next to the casing.

Of course, a single patent for a smaller RAM enclosure does not a sub-notebook or even Tablet make, and the development would easily find a place in any of the still-slimming MacBook and MacBook Pro ranges.  Looked at in partnership with the advances in touchscreen technology, however, as well as previous patents for collapsible ports, and the prospect of a compact and highly portable Apple machine using the MultiTouch interface as either primary or partial means of control appears all the more likely.

[via SlashGear]