According to new rumors, Apple seems to be making progress in developing a foldable iPhone. It appears that the company has asked its Foxconn, its largest iPhone supplier, to create two prototypes of folding screens.
As reported Tom’s guide on Sunday, citing the Taiwanese website United Daily News, Apple’s two prototypes reflect two very different approaches to the folding phones in the industry. Tom’s Guide indicates that one of the designs is similar to Samsung Galaxy Z Flip, which we remember, has a flexible screen with wrinkles in the middle and can be folded. The other is closer Microsoft Surface Duo, the output notes, a two-screen device that looks like a book and is held together by a hinge.
It’s unclear if Apple is working on two separate folding phones or if it’s testing several ideas for the final new type of iPhone, according to Tom’s Guide.
Add it to a recent patent application issued Thursday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which was filed in April from last year, and you can’t help but be extraordinarily curious about what Apple is doing in this area. The app, titled “Foldable Electronic Devices with Toothed Hinges,” describes a device that can be folded inward and outward.
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“An electronic device has a folding screen. The first and second portions of an electronic device housing for the device can be joined by a hinge. A flexible screen can overlap the first part of the housing and the second part of the housing and can be bent along a curve axis as the first and second portions of the housing rotate each other with the others through the hinge, ”says the summary.
This isn’t Apple’s first patent application that seems to be related to folding phones, and it probably won’t be the last. He has also filed a patent application for self-healing screen as well as one that allows it two screens to work perfectly as one when they are close to each other.
The fact that the company has filed patents and that the rumor mill is boiling does not mean that any of the ideas or designs are an agreement made. Some could never be done. While we believe Apple will end up making a folding phone, it could end up being very different from everything we’ve speculated when it finally arrives. Still, it never hurts to imagine the possibilities.
[Tom’s Guide]