The struggle is real: my aging eyes want larger print, but I can’t fit a huge phone into my pocket. (I’m just grateful that people have stopped trying to make the word “phablet” happen.) Samsung thinks they have the solution with their “Infinity Flex Display.” It’s still the same OLED display common to most smartphones, but instead of a glass cover it employs an “advanced composite polymer” — fancy plastic, in other words — which will let you fold the tablet-sized device for easy pocket storage.
Meanwhile, most of my bifocal-wearing friends and family lug around big iPhone X’s. Apple has quietly admitted to problems with those screens — not responding to touch, or responding to touches that haven’t happened — and they’re replacing the screens for free.
- Samsung’s foldable phone is real, and it launches next year (Ars Technica) “The device opens and closes like a book, and there are actually two screens. When closed, you’ll see a rigid, smartphone-style screen on the front of the device. Opening the ‘book’ will reveal a second, much larger bendable screen on the inside of the device.”
- Google says Android will natively support ‘foldables’ to limit fragmentation [The Verge] “Google has been waging a never-ending battle against fragmentation on Android, and a new form factor is a potential inflection point. As manufacturers race to create devices, they’re going to need software that can support them.”
- Samsung’s First Flexible Phone Could Cost $1,700, and That Price Seems Totally Reasonable [Gizmodo] “Samsung’s flexible phone is still going to be a major loss leader. The point of the phone is to explore a new way to make a phone, and then use that info to refine the experience for future bendy devices.”
- Apple Says Some IPhone X Units Have Faulty Touch Screens [Bloomberg] “Apple hadn’t previously responded to reports of problems with iPhone X screens, but it had opened similar replacement programs in the past for older iPhone models with screen issues, including the iPhone 6.”
From the Ohio Web Library:
- Forrest, Stephen R. “Light-emitting diode.” World Book Advanced, World Book, 2018.
- Bertolucci, Jeff. “What’s the Big Deal?: Analyzing the size explosion in smartphones.” Saturday Evening Post, vol. 287, no. 2, Mar. 2015, p. 82.
- “Your Phablet.” Consumer Reports, vol. 83, no. 12, Dec. 2018, p. 18.
