Apple filed a patent to produce devices with wrap around flexible displays that spread across the whole device from front to back. In the patent filing, Apple states that most current devices use only a small or certain portion of the whole device to display content and thus waste a lot of valuable space. To avoid this and make better use of the visible space available on the device Apple aims to create a device with wrap around display that will display information all over from front to back. The key to this technology is the advancement of flexible AMOLED displays being tested by few manufacturers like Samsung. Though this technology hasn’t yet reached mass production stages the time is quite near for it.
In the patent filed, Apple explains various scenarios of creating such a device but all the possibilities are based out of glass enclosures itself with a few of them having metallic structures for support inside. Glass is basically receptive to radio signals and thus does not hamper any radio waves like cellular, WiFi or Bluetooth. Apple explains a mechanism where users will be able to unwrap the display and create a flat structure when needed. Other aspects of the possibility describe layers of flexible displays over one another to create a 3D like effect for viewers.
As the device has a wrap around display it is essential to detect the user’s position relative to the device to display the content in the right way, to achieve this Apple seems to be using the built in camera to detect the face of the user and then decide the orientation of the content on the display. Apple also specifies about mechanisms wherein the device will be having on screen controls for tasks like volume control etc, based on gestures performed on the device. We covered about a GUI-less gesture based multitouch control patent that Apple acquired recently that might prove to be quite useful for this current patent.
Source: AppleInsider