As many of you know, Apple still didn’t release its first foldable device. Some info regarding it did just surface, though. Based on a new patent filing, the first foldable iPhone may feature touch sensitive edges.
A foldable iPhone may end up featuring touch sensitive edges
The title of this patent filing is “Electronic Devices With Display And Touch Sensor Structures”. This patent was spotted and shared by AppleInsider, by the way, and it seems to refer to a foldable phone from Apple.
Now, this is just a patent filing, not a confirmation or anything of the sort. Just because Apple patented something like this doesn’t mean it plans to use it in its first foldable phone, or at all, for that matter.
Those edges are supposed to be useful when a phone is in a folded state
So, what’s this exactly about? Well, exactly what you think, touch-sensitive sides. The whole premise of this is to use those sides when the phone is folded, to get more functionality, basically.
The patent says: “Buttons and other input devices may be used to gather input from a user, but this type of input device may not be as convenient and versatile as a touch sensor. Displays are sometimes not visible from certain directions and may be smaller than desired”.
You can check out the included sketch below. This is just a generic sketch, of course, not the actual look at a foldable device, so keep that in mind.
This approach does seem interesting
In the description, Apple also added the following: “The front wall and portions of the sidewalls may be formed from a glass layer or other transparent member. A touch sensor layer and display layer may extend under the front and sidewall portions of the glass layer… [a] touch sensor layer may also extend under the opposing rear wall”.
Now, all of this does sound quite interesting. We do wonder if it’ll work well in actual usage, though. Considering this is Apple we’re talking about, chances are this will get tested thoroughly before it gets implemented. If it doesn’t meet the requirements for ease of use, it’ll likely get scrapped.
Apple is allegedly aiming to ditch physical buttons in the relatively near future, so this move is not all that surprising, actually.