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Future iPhones could be ROLLABLE, Apple’s latest patent shows smartphone that opens and closes like a fruit roller
Apple has yet to launch a foldable smartphone like its rivals Samsung and Motorola, but the tech giant could be working on a rollable iPhone that would be its first ever.
A new patent describes a device that looks like a fruit roll with a thin screen that bends around an axis when put away.
The rollable iPhone would have a protective layer of glass over the screen to protect it from scratches and other damage while rolling and unrolling.
The document also suggested adding coatings to the outer layer, such as anti-smudge, anti-fog, anti-glare and anti-static layers.
Apple will launch its iPhone 15 in September, so if the company releases a rollable smartphone it won’t be until 2024 at the earliest.
Apple has yet to launch a foldable smartphone like its rivals Samsung and Motorola, but the tech giant could be working on a rollable iPhone that would be its first ever
However, Apple has been awarded numerous patents that never become real technologies.
Either way, the tech giant is an exciting window into what the future could hold.
‘An electronic device can have a roll-up display. The display can be moved between an unfolded state in which the display is flat and a rolled-up state in which a rollable portion of the display is rolled up for storage,” the patent reads.
It describes the display using a pixel array to define the shape and color of digital images on the screen.
The display would also bend around an axis as it rolled onto a roll for storage.
Apple proposes to design the inner part of the smartphone with several layers to protect it from damage when rolled up and unrolled.
The first layer can be made of a coating, followed by another made of polyimide, a type of plastic used in everything from airplane parts to sporting goods and adhesives.
And the outermost layer would be the thinnest and made of a polymer popular in plastic bags, clothing, and Teflon-coated cookware.
The display would also bend around an axis as it rolled onto a roll for storage.
Polymers are tough and provide thermal and electrical insulation.
‘In this type of setup, a layer can help prevent relatively deep scratches in the layer from penetrating to the outer surface of the glass layer, while a layer, which may be formed of a harder polymer than a layer, can help protect the surface of the layer. against scratches that could cause haze or other visible changes in the coating,” the patent reads.
This isn’t Apple’s first patent describing a rollable iPhone – the tech giant published another in 2020.
The document describes a flexible screen “wrapped around one or more rollers,” which allows the screen to be pulled out of a “housing” and rolled up again when not in use.
The patent, titled “Electronic device with flexible display structures,” was filed in December 2017 and published on March 24, 2020, as first reported by AppleInsider.
This isn’t Apple’s first patent describing a rollable iPhone — the tech giant published another in 2020 (pictured)
“A device may have rollers that store a flexible screen and help deploy the screen from a housing when the additional viewing area is desired,” the patent reads.
‘A touchscreen in a housing can be overlapped by a flexible display that has been slid out from the housing.’
Apple’s new design features a wireless transmitter and receiver circuit that displays images on screen in a pixel array format.
Magnets have also been used on either side of the housings ‘to prevent a rolled-up flexible display from creasing’.
However, Apple’s 2020 patent shows that the design wouldn’t be limited to iPhones – as rollable iPads are also discussed in the document.