Earlier this week, Samsung officially unveiled the Galaxy Fold — the company’s first foldable smartphone.
There is no doubt that the Galaxy Fold is the culmination of many years of hard work and design, but there has been some questions surrounding launch timing. The Galaxy Fold will go on sale in April of this year, and some have suggested it’s too early. Samsung obviously wants to get the ball rolling with a live, consumer-ready device. And other companies like Huawei and Motorola are certainly helping their case.
So, what about Apple? There have been rumors in the past that the company, like all the others probably, has considered a foldable smartphone. But, unlike Samsung and some others, 2019 is not going to be the year that phone debuts. Some analysts have predicted we could see a foldable phone with an Apple logo in 2020, but that still feels unlikely.
So, for now at least, we will have to live with some fun concept renderings of what a foldable iPhone could look like. The folks over at Foldable.News requested the work of Dutch industrial designer Roy Gilsing to put together some images of what a foldable iPhone could look like. The design is quite similar to the Galaxy Fold itself, with a vertical hinge that unfolds the device into a much larger tablet-like design.
The renders go by the name “iPhone X Fold”, which is probably not something Apple would go with. Still, we can see a display on the front when the phone is closed. This bears a striking resemblance to the iPhone X, with a notch at the top and edge-to-edge design. Basically, very different from the Galaxy Fold’s bezel-friendly design. Meanwhile, when opening the device, there’s more edge-to-edge screen design — so no bezel here. Another key difference from the real-world product Samsung is shipping next month for $1,980.
The best part is the rather interesting use cases the iPhone X Fold could offer. In one particular situation, the screen could be folded up to look similar to a laptop. The bottom display would then be used as a keyboard. That’s definitely an interesting idea. But one hopes that a device like this would get Apple Pencil support, too.
We recently saw a foldable iPhone patent application surface, so it at least tells us that Apple is still considering the idea. However, when, or even if, we actually see a folding iPhone remains to be seen. What do you think of these concept images?
[via Foldable.News]
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