Everyone wants to know what Apple's Next Big Thing will be. So we gazed into our crystal ball to glimpse these four ripped-from-the-future prototypes of devices that Apple could make in the years ahead. Join us this week as we post a new prototype every day thought up by the Mac|Life staff, and feel free to share your own ideas in the comments.

The love child of the iPhone and the MacBook will revolutionize mobile computing and entertainment.

Today, it takes commitment to be wired everywhere you go. Lugging around a bag crammed with—at a minimum—an iPhone, MacBook, and headphones sometimes makes us feel like we’re schlepping more than a sherpa. Come 2017, the iScroll will not only free us all from those burdens, but it’ll also wire us up like never before.

When you first pick one up, you might mistake it for a tall, skinny iPhone from five or six years before—but that impression will change when you pull on the right side. A bendable FOLED (flexible organic light emitting diode) touchscreen will unspool and flicker to life in glorious 1440p. This is not just wishful thinking—Sony and Samsung have been tinkering with FOLEDs for years now, and while they’re awfully expensive today, those prices are expected to plummet fast. Touchscreen versions don’t exist yet to our knowledge, but we trust that Apple can crack that nut.

Back to this awesome bendable display. What better way to browse the web, watch a flick, or scan a map on its enjoyably large, 8x11-inch surface? Wireless earbuds will pipe the audio right into your skull, and the non-bendable Multi-Touch display will house a 24-hour battery, 5G/Wi-Max radio, 1TB of RAM, and a 10MP camera for videos, photos, and FaceTime calls. Knitting it all together will be Hyena, Apple’s sleek new operating system that, in a long-expected move, will merge the old Mac OS and iOS. To ensure privacy, the back side of the display will be blank silver, save for the softly glowing Apple logo in the center.

1. This roll-out, bendable FOLED touchscreen will be perfect for reading maps, perusing the e-newspaper, or just tucking into a movie, app, or game.

2. When in laptop mode, the iScroll's main touchscreen will become a huge Magic Trackpad—and yes, it'll know the difference between intentional gestures and just resting your wrists to use the keyboard.

3. Advances in memory plastics will allow the iScroll's bendable display to stiffen on command, converting it into the airiest MacBook yet.

4. America is big. So even in 2017, we'll still encounter places with no signal. But when we return to "civilization" the iScroll will automatically sync its 1TB of RAM with your permanent cloud storage.

But for some tasks like writing or video editing, you can’t beat the laptop’s form factor. In those moments, you’ll tap a hardware button along the side to trigger a memory-plastic effect that’ll stiffen the bendable display, kinking it about a third of the way along its length into a familiar, MacBook-esque shape. The non-bendable display will become a trackpad, a keyboard will come up on the not-bendable-anymore display, and you can get cracking.

In what might seem like a downside today, the iScroll will have no permanent onboard storage—everything will sync constantly to and from the cloud, deploying the rock-solid MobileMe3 service to keep your latest data instantly available no matter which device you use.
Yes, even if you’re still stuck in an AT&T contract...