Apple patent filing involves a multi-function peripheral attachment for an iPad — Apple World Today

However, recent advances in computing devices have provided for the miniaturization or reduction in size of the components. Apple’s idea it to prove a peripheral with “additional or enhanced device functionality.” 

Here’s Apple’s summary (which is heavy in tech speak) of the patent filing: “A computing device can include a housing including a peripheral housing defining an aperture, the peripheral housing having a constant cross-sectional area. The computing device can also include a display having a first major surface and a second major surface opposing the first major surface, the display disposed within the aperture defined by the peripheral housing and attached to the housing at one or more locations such that the first major surface and the second major surface of the display are substantially unobstructed by any other portion of the computing device.”