Apple Patents Wrap-Around AMOLED Display

This week Apple's industrial designers and inventors have found their way back into the USPTO with a patent filing for a wrap-around display. This means that you'll have a device that's got a display that's wrapping around its sides rather than just sitting on the front – AMOLED in technology, too. You'll have brightness and light coming at you from all directions!

What you're actually looking at here is more of a concept for a future set of possibilities. Patents such as this don't always have to make it to the market with a fully operational product – you probably wont see an oval-shaped iPhone in the near future. But what we can be excited about is the fact that we're well on our way to this sort of technology making its way to the public in products that are slightly less wacky – as just part of the full show.

There's a set of examples that Apple gives with diagrams showing angles at which this transforming display might be implemented. If you've got a couple of caps on each end, any number of candybar-shaped modules might be created. As Engadget notes, one of these describes how the caps of each one of these cellphone-like devices could be connected to one another, creating a long snake of devices – or perhaps one massive display.

As for the rest of the mobile universe, we've already seen some flexible AMOLED concepts out there in the wild. Samsung in particular has been bringing some odd heat here and there – still not inside a market-ready device, but getting closer every day!

Who do you think will reach the market first, folks? And better yet: do you think there's really a need for a product with a bendy screen in our modern age?

[via AppleInsider]