A couple of days back the US Patent and Trademarks Office published Apple’s application for a wrap-around form factor for electronic devices. It looks like a curvy, future iPhone.
Well, not “wraps around,” per se, but rather “wraps within.” Patent application 20130076612, published Thursday morning in the US Patent and Trademark Office’s weekly filing-fest, describes a device in which a flexible AMOLED display is inserted into a hollow glass housing, and is pressed against the inside of that housing by “structural support elements.”
In one of its examples, Apple describes a device with two flexible displays that work together.
You can see from Apple’s illustration above what a flexible iPhone might look like. Note the volume controls on the side that are no longer physical buttons, but virtual ones.
This certainly seems like a form factor that would be better suited to the palms of our hands, but it’s unclear how practical it would be in everyday use. A wraparound display may not be as comfortable to type on, and it may not be as suitable as a flat display for things like gaming and watching movies.
The filing also describes a rather simple and permanent-looking connector that handles communications between the display and the device’s logic board, which resides in the center of the transparent housing.
What do you think? Are you excited? Or could all this be used for the rumoured iWatch?
[Forbes, Cult of Mac]
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