Foldable Smartphones: There may be no ‘iPhone Fold’, here’s why – Times of India

It is still a little too early to comment anything on the future of foldable smartphones. From the looks of it, the idea seems to stick and is here to stay in one form or another. The idea of foldable phones has taken off but still remains a niche in the smartphone market. So much so, that more brands have got onboard or are about to get onboard.
Apple being Apple — taking its own sweet time — looks like it is still wondering whether to go on with an iPhone Fold or try something else.
In the past, there have been several patent applications from Apple that talk about a foldable phone, but also suggest that a rollable display could be an alternative.
New patent application suggests at rollable instead of foldable
“Electronic Devices With Rollable Displays” — that’s what the new patent application is titled. This shows that Apple may be serious about pursuing that alternate flexible display idea.
The Abstract of the patent application reads, “An electronic device may have a rollable display. The display may be moved between an unrolled state in which the display is planar and a rolled state in which a rollable portion of the display is rolled up for storage.”
“The display may have a display panel with a pixel array that produces images and a transparent protective layer that overlaps the pixel array. The transparent protective layer may contain a layer of glass”, it continues.
The application further mentions that “the glass layer may be locally thinned in the rollable portion to facilitate rolling of the display. The display may be configured to apply compressive stress to the outwardly facing surface of the glass layer when the display is rolled up.”
Patent explains what’s needed for this entire system to work without getting damaged
While the patent application does not delve deeply into managing stresses on the material, it acknowledges the need for a flexible display that can withstand rolling without sustaining damage upon touch. Apple suggests that a layer of glass attached to the front surface of the display panel could serve as a protective measure, preventing deformities and damage caused by external objects such as fingers or styluses. Additionally, the application proposes the use of protective polymer layers or coatings on the glass layer to prevent scratches.
Likely to include necessary sensors
The patent application also references various sensors that could be incorporated into the rollable display, including strain gauges, capacitive force sensors, resistive force sensors and more. Apple even explores the potential for sensors capable of detecting three-dimensional non-contact gestures, allowing users to interact with the unrolled display.
Apple seems to be taking the idea of a rollable display pretty seriously and the way the patent explains the entire mechanism, it looks like Apple is actually looking to come up with a fully functional — no compromise — rollable display panel. It could be used in portable devices that will become even small for storage and also be durable enough.
Still, there are a lot of questions unanswered at the moment about the rollable display. For instance, the rollable mechanism will have lots of moving parts and that will make the phone more susceptible to damage, functional failure and most importantly — the IP rating. Well, for now, the seems like a functional idea, but only time will tell, how Apple is planning to overcome all these things.