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Apple files patent for foldable iPhone, on the eve of foldable Samsung Galaxy

Apple Inc. is joining the other major phone manufacturers in the next big trend: foldable smartphones.
Credit: Denver Business Journal
DJ Koh, president and CEO of Samsung's IT and mobile communications division, unveils the Galaxy Fold, which will cost around $2,000 and unfold in half, like a book, at a press event in San Francisco on Wednesday.

Apple Inc. is joining the other major phone manufacturers in the next big trend: foldable smartphones.

Last week, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published preliminary drawings of a new Apple screen that’s theoretically capable of folding in half, like a clamshell, or in thirds, like a triangle.

Samsung, meanwhile, is charging ahead with its own foldable phone plans. At a press event on Wednesday, the company unveiled the Galaxy Fold, which will cost around $2,000 and unfold in half, like a book, revealing a 7.3-inch screen. The Galaxy Fold will start selling in the U.S. in late April.

Apple has anticipated the folding smartphone since at least 2011, when it filed its first patent application for “flexible display devices.”

"The hinge may be configured to allow the flexible display to be placed in a front-to-front configuration in which an active side of the display faces itself or a back-to-back configuration,” Apple’s latest patent application reads. “Engagement structures may be used to help the housing grip external objects and to hold the housing portions together. The hinges may be provided with rotational detents to help hold the flexible display in desired positions.”

Read more at the Denver Business Journal: https://bit.ly/2STpCCV 

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