Is This the Next iPad, iPhone Killer from Samsung? Flexible Display Panel for Wrap-Around Screen Device Rendition
Could it be that Samsung will beat Apple in releasing the first fully-functioning mobile device with a wrap-around screen?
Apple first introduced such possibility in a set of patents revealed in the earlier part of 2012, all pointing to a device blueprint that has a screen covering the whole body with disappearing buttons.
Blog reports soon speculated that the model suggestions open the door for the radical redesign of the iOS smartphone template, leading to a very different iPhone 6 which were then showcased in successive renders.
The thought of getting the iPhone 6 with the signature Apple innovations only heightened interest to the device deemed as representative the tech giant's entry into the increasingly lucrative phablet market.
But such cutting-edge technology, it appears, is also in the hands of Apple's bitter rival, Samsung.
In a new invention that has been under the consideration of patent authorities in the United States and South Korea since last year, it was revealed that Samsung is in near-complete stage of producing a display panel that is bendable with screen zones that facilitates for the screen interface to shift its functions.
What is unique about the new system, according to Patent Bolt, is it provides "a control method and apparatus ... when the flexible display is bent."
The core offering packaged into the exciting new technology is largely "dividing the flexible display into a main screen and a sub screen, and outputting information through the main screen and the sub screen in a portable terminal," the same report added.
In principle, the upcoming Galaxy models - smartphones and tablets - would sport flexible displays that are designed to independently recognise user inputs that are fed either from the main screen or the second screen created by a deliberate or "external pressure."
If the same technology is applied with another Samsung display patent that describes of a device screen in 'roll-state configuration' then it can be safely assumed that the pathway is all set for the Asian tech giant to release a future Galaxy smartphone that looks and behaves in the same way that the iPhone 6 is rumoured to.
Noteworthy too is the embodiment employed by Samsung in the patent, which is a tablet, hinting that future builds of Galaxy smartphones - the S and Note phablet series - and tablets - the Tab and Note tablet series - will benefit from the same treatment.