By: Nick Gambino
The foldable smartphone game has been heating up these last couple years with Samsung leading the way. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 is the newest in their popular line of folding phones and is expected to ship 40% more of these speciality phones this year than last year.
Samsung is such a leader in the space that it’s now rumored that they will be supplying the screen for Apple’s very own foldable phone. This is a bit of a shocker as the two companies are staunch rivals in the mobile space.
The news comes by way of tech analyst Ming-Chi Kuo whose tech scoops tend to be right a lot of the time. He says this is a clear indicator that Apple values nailing the foldable iPhone out the gate over their own ego. Apparently Apple is commissioning (for lack of a better word) a crease-free design.
For context, Samsung doesn’t even have a crease-free foldable phone on the market. The newest Galaxy Z Fold 7 which only launched this month, still sports a bit of a crease right down the middle. If this is true then that means Samsung is working on custom tech for Apple.
The way in which these folding phones end up with a crease is pretty simple. The stress of the bending display folding and unfolding on a hinge deforms it and creates a wrinkle of sorts. So the way they’re apparently going to solve this is by installing a plate that stops the material on the screen from stressing past its own limitations. This preserves the integrity thereby preventing creasing. According to Kuo these little plates are going to be supplied by Fine M-Tec.
It’s clear Apple is trying to get their first foldable iPhone right. As other companies have already launched their version of this modern flip phone, Apple is behind the 8 ball. By releasing a “flip” iPhone that gets rid of that nasty crease, they might have a chance at clawing their way to the top.
