Allow the laptop to be used as a thunderbolt dock, with the onboard devices connected through it (display, keyboard/trackpad, webcam, storage etc all acting as though it’s connected through a dock)
It is not hard to imagine that proud owners of a Framework laptop, having already invested a great deal into outfitting their device, would naturally be quite attached to their choice of accessories and prefer a familiar battle station even when momentarily moving to a desktop.
The new Apple monitor/hub has a full-fledged SoC in its own right, so it’s not a stretch to think that Framework’s motherboard can be designed to be used in reverse, serving as a hub for receiving video input and passing peripheral connections into the desktop which it is connected to.
Alternatively, perhaps some accessory can be devised such that it routes the display controller and keyboard/trackpad bypassed from the rest of the system, if it might be too complicated to get the rest of the USB connections to work.
Being an owner of a TEX Shinobi, I’ve found myself on multiple occasions wishing that I could attach a small display onto the keyboard to use as a terminal for my desktop PC, then realizing that it would’ve been perfectly served by if my ThinkPad had been able to passively function as a hub rather than a standalone device.
