Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has been quite dormant over groundbreaking innovations for some time now. The last of their innovations can be dated back to their iPhone and iPad. However, they do come up with interesting patents that lead to most aspiring products. Their latest patent deals with some mysterious device which sports a 360-degree screen. Let us look at it in some more detail.
The patent seems to sport a display in a number of sizes, ranging from cylindrical to triangular to the shape of a book and what not. It doesn’t seem to have a fixed shape. This is maybe down to the fact that either Apple are having trouble finalising the possible alternating shapes, or it could be that the shape of the device in the patent could be changed on purpose. Is it going to be Apple’s attempt at a foldable phone? Could be.
iPhone with 360 Degree Display: Other Details
Apple has really decided to go about this patent in a lot of detail. It speaks about the casing which can be made of transparent polymer, transparent ceramic, or synthetic sapphire. The patent goes further in detail about the sapphire body.
There is also mention of how the components are arranged inside the device. The way it will work is that the components there will be wrap around displays glued to the sapphire body which will be flexible. The other thing mentioned there was about the accelerators and gyroscopes to be included in the printed circuit keyboards.
Other included components include e-ink displays as well, opening up a lot of possibilities with regards to application and usage.
Finally, What Are We Talking About Exactly?
At this point, it is hard to predict as to what the patent is for. One of the rumours about were thrown around in the past couple of years was that Apple was, in fact, planning to release a new iPhone in the future which will be equipped with wrap screens. It was dubbed to be the iPhone 360. Although this could very well be true, it is too early to tell. The one thing that we are sure of is the foldable OLED panels. Hence, a foldable phone or iPod or iPad may be the logical guess. With the e-ink technology included in the patent, it might end up being somewhat similar in function to an Amazon Kindle.
Innovation At Last
Regardless of how the device might manifest itself in a product in the future, I love the mystery surrounding it. It is almost like the Apple of old. While all the major smartphone companies are trying to come up with the next foldable smartphone, Apple’s patent reveals a pretty unorthodox implementation of the same. Who knows, this might even be more successful than the foldable smartphones all the futurists are raving about!
