The whole point of the cheese grater design is to keep the device cool, which reportedly works quite well. But while poking the housing full of holes may work well for a desktop computer design-wise, it’s not as easy to see how it would be feasible for a mobile phone. Keeping an iPhone that is literally covered with holes clean of debris would be a nightmare, and maintaining the device’s waterproofness would certainly be a challenge.
Of course, just because Apple has received a patent for the technology doesn’t mean that it will actually be developing it. But it is one of the best insights we get into the creative minds of the company’s engineering teams.