Apple has spent years working on minimizing the damage caused by falls on iPhones. For example, in 2014 he filed a patent for a system that used an internal vibration motor to rotate an iPhone in midair so that it landed on its back instead of on the screen.
Recently, Manzana has filed a patent application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office entitled “Self-Retracting Display Device and Techniques for Protecting the Display by Fall Detection.”
Apple plans to use sensors inside a device with a folding or roll-up screen that would detect what it calls “vertical acceleration with respect to the ground” to determine if this device is crashing.
Yes that’s how it is, the device may be partially closed or retracted to protect “the fragile screen of the impact against the ground“. This technology would be truly innovative within the folding sector, where fragility continues to be its great handicap.
A technology that would also reach the folding iPad
The patent application adds that even having the screen retract to less than a 180-degree angle could be useful because the edges of the device would hit the ground instead of the screen.
A rollable screen could automatically retract if the device were to fall at a speed greater than certain predetermined limits. Come on, the same system as with the folding phone, but here rolling up.
Well-known analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, one of Apple’s top insiders, says that a foldable iPad could go on sale in 2025. Of course, Kuo said in 2021 that a foldable iPhone would arrive in 2023 and that 20 million units would be sold.. So let’s take this statement with a grain of salt.