Mobile phones abandoned their foldable formats to become rigid and intelligent modules. They adopted touch screens, left behind buttons, increased their processing power, and now… they want to be foldable again, or at least that's what the patents from the main players in the market tell us. Samsung published dozens of them about devices with this characteristic, and if we follow the available information, Cupertino just received its own.
Did the world go crazy? Foldable or "flip" phones went out of style years ago… but no, it's not madness. The stagnation of smartphones is impossible to ignore. Everything that companies call innovation is boredom for consumers. In the name of constant consumption and brutal update cycles, very serious mistakes were made, like the one Samsung is experiencing with its Galaxy Note 7 addicted to spontaneous combustion. In short, I think a very appropriate word to describe the current market of mobile devices is disappointing. Going back to the roots when things go wrong is not a bad idea, and honestly, the concept of a foldable device never fully disappeared. If I'm not mistaken, Samsung has more than two dozen patents exploring foldable designs, but who brings us here today is Apple.
The Patent
The description of the new patent, whose number is 9485862, talks about electronic devices with printed circuits based on carbon nanotubes, and its confirmation was relatively quick, with a presentation in August, and its publication yesterday. From a technical point of view, it's not the first time the Cupertino giant is caught playing with foldable phones, as there are records of two patents (2013 and 2014) in the European Patent Office. What do nanotubes have to do with all this? Besides being conductive, they are flexible and resistant to cracks. Nanotubes could be incorporated into signal cables to combine foldable elements with rigid printed circuits, to the point that the patent text mentions a hinge.
As always, we're going to open the bag of salt and throw handfuls in all directions. The phrase a patent does not equal a product remains firm, and the most logical thing here is to assume that Apple is only protecting its intellectual property. May some higher power save us (say giant asteroid or alien invasion) if Apple and Samsung end up in court to discuss who invented the foldable smartphone first...
