“In July Patently Apple posted two reports regarding Samsung’s obsession with bendable smartphones and/or foldable smartphones,” Jack Purcher reports for Patently Apple.
“Apple’s first patent regarding foldable smartphone form factors was discovered by Patently Apple in a European patent filing in 2013,” Purcher reports. “We discovered a second patent filing in Europe regarding a foldable smartphone in 2014. Today we were surprised to find that Apple was granted their first patent covering a foldable and/or bendable future iPhone that was never published before as a patent application under Apple’s name. Apple must have kept it secret by filing it under their engineer’s names and not under Apple to avoid detection. In this patent, Apple reveals the possible use of carbon nanotubes to facilitate their new smartphone form factor.”
“Conductive carbon nanotube paths can form signal paths that are flexible and resistant to cracking,” Purcher reports. “The carbon nanotube structures may be incorporated into signal cables such as flexible printed circuit cables, rigid printed circuit boards, printed circuits that include rigid portions with flexible tails (sometimes referred to as ‘rigid flex’), portions of display structures, portions of touch sensors such as capacitive touch sensor arrays for displays or track pads, camera structures, antenna structures, housing structures, internal device structures, electrical components, substrates, brackets, housing walls, other structures, or combinations of these structures.”
Read more and see Apple’s patent application illustrations in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Hmm. Very interesting in many respects, including Apple’s seeming intent to avoid detection.
The whole flexible thing sounds flimsy and even more incendiary baiting then SamSplode’s previous munitions offerings. Never say never but I have my doubts. I rather like a device with a little heft, not one that will blow away in a strong breeze.
remember those speculative computer generated imaged mock ups we saw years and years ago in macworld or mac user of bracelet like apple products – maybe mr ive remembers them too…..
I think it was secretive because Apple didn’t want samsung to see what they were up to. It’s probably why they’ve so obsessed with foldable or bendable designs. The thought of Apple getting ahead of them is driving them crazy.
If Apple had a ‘Note” smartphone to compete with Samsung, I think it would be a dual display or like the one displayed today to use with Apple Pencil. I bet we’ll see this by 2019-2020.
Would be easier to just return to the good old flip-phone? /sarc
Does a notebook look like a flip-phone to you?
Why do new thinks always disturb the apple communities little comfort zones so easily? This from a community that yelled that Apple would never enter the smartphone market. Thank god they don’t listen to their fans much.
You need to work on your comprehension skills Joe.
It would be great if I could open the Calendar app and have a more flexible schedule.
Just look at the last Westworld episode, the engineer has a thin device which flips open to become a larger thin pad to type on. While watching it would seem like a path to a future device which i am sure Jony has been looking at.
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