Foldable phones seem to be the next major innovation that mobile phone manufacturers are thinking about, and according to some information that appeared yesterday, they are closer than we imagined. Samsung, Huawei, LG, Oppo, Lenovo, ZTE and even Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), they have patents that describe methods by which foldable phones can be created, but only some of the companies are close to launching such a thing.
The first foldable phones are to be launched in 2018 on the market, and those from Samsung are credited as being the closest to bringing the first smartphone of this kind to the market. The president of Samsung's mobile division admitted that his company is developing a foldable phone and that 2018 is the year when the product should reach the market, but its launch has already been fined once.
Samsung would have reached somewhere around 80% of the development process of such a phone, but neither Huawei, LG, nor Oppo are very far, Apple still has a lot of work to do for now. Some of these manufacturers invest billions of dollars annually in research and development, and in the case of Samsung, in 2018 we will see the fruits of a work that began 5 years ago.
"The world's first wave of foldable smartphone is likely to make its debut at the end of 2018 as a number of brand vendors are accelerating their R&D efforts. Samsung Electronics has applied patents related to foldable smartphones in Korea and the US and is expected to unveil its roadmap for its foldable models in 2018. Samsung has been developing smartphones with inward-folding displays since five years ago and has completed up to 80% of the manufacturing process of related products."
Of course, it is not known how useful the first foldable smartphones will be, how much they will cost and if they are worth buying, but this trend must also start with a certain product. I think that Apple will wait to see what Android phone manufacturers bring to the market, analyze their designs and technologies, and then release a phone that will be really useful, if such a thing is really possible.
