Apple has started developing an OLED panel without a polarizer that will make them thinner than traditional displays.
Reportedly, these slim OLED panels are ideal for use in foldable displays. Samsung already uses OLED displays with similar technology on the Galaxy Z Fold3.
There’s plenty of proof that Apple has had a folding iPhone on the drawing board for years. But the company held off until flexible displays are past the prototype phase. The latest foldables from Samsung show that the technology has finally matured to the point where an iPhone Fold could become a mass-market success.
This surely hasn’t escaped Apple’s attention, which is why a folding iPhone is probably coming in 2023.
A folding iPhone is two years away, according to a trusted industry analyst. When open, the device will have an 8-inch screen, significantly bigger than the current largest iOS model, which has a 6.7-inch display.
Apple is reportedly testing two different folding iPhone designs. But only one of them has a flexible screen. If one of the prototypes successfully passes testing, it could become the first foldable iOS handset.
Apple’s “foldable” iPhone will use dual displays to get around the foldable screen problem that plagues other folding phones like Samsung’s beleaguered Galaxy Fold, claims Apple leaker Jon Prosser.
“The current prototype has two separate display panels on a hinge,” Prosser wrote in a tweet Monday. He claims the foldable iPhone prototype boasts “round, stainless steel edges like current iPhone 11 design” and features no notch. Instead, there is a “tiny forehead” on the outer display that houses the Face ID sensors.
The iPhone 12 Flip is the foldable iOS device many are hoping for. This proposed concept fits a large screen into a tiny package.
While currently only a dream, Apple is hard at work on technologies that could eventually make it real.
Watch a video of the iPhone 12 Flip concept now:
Apple engineers are exploring the feasibility of a dual-screen iPhone or iPad. Two displays that touch with no bezels between them would simulate one large display. And this wouldn’t have some of the drawbacks of folding screens.
A concept design for a folding iPhone has none of the drawbacks of the handsets with flexible screens released so far. It shows what an iOS device using this tech might look like some time in the future.
Take a look at a short video of the folding iPhone concept in action:
The market for foldable phones is still in its infancy. But a market analysts firm says eventually every major phone maker will produce them, including Apple. Once problems with early designs are worked out, shipments will pass the 100 million mark in a few years.
A foldable iPhone is probably somewhere in Apple’s future, but a concept designer shows us just how amazing it might look today.
The flexible display allows this dream device to be both phone and small tablet.
