Patently Apple’s other blog called Patently Mobile has covered the advances of flexible displays from Samsung for years. You could check out some of the major ones here: (one, two, three and four. The most interesting ones relate to a possible scrollable smart device. Today the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals their work on flexible displays and electronics that will extend to specialty applications. Beyond applying their revealed technology to known devices such as a smartphone or tablet, Apple see’s the technology being widely adopted into smart clothing, smart windows, applications in vehicles, furniture and more. One of the inventors on the patent previously worked for a company where they made flexible medical devices, skin-mounted epidermal electronics and even next gen flexible processors. So this is a serious invention that is likely to work through the system over time and eventually to market. It’s not just pie in the sky thinking.
Traditional displays and touch sensors mounted in a device may be subject to stress-induced failures. As devices with flexible displays are being considered for the future, Apple has to invent new and improved input-output methodologies to accommodate such displays.
Apple notes that their invention relates to a flexible input-output device such as a display or a display with integrated sensors and haptic output may be formed from an elastomeric substrate layer.
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