Microsoft put paid to speculations about its rumoured foldable phone when it announced the Surface Neo and Surface Duo in October 2019 with the Surface Duo adopting a folding phone design. The two models which happened to be Microsoft’s first attempt at the dual-screen phones was billed to be released in 2020. However, seems Microsoft has got another concept foldable phones in the works.
A recent patent application stumbled upon by MSPoweruser suggests the US company may be planning to launch a redesigned foldable phone that may have borrowed some design inspiration from the Galaxy Fold. The patent titled “FOLDABLE DISPLAY DEVICE WITH INTERACTABLE USER INTERFACE SURFACE ON THE EXTERNAL SHELL” was filed with the European Patent Office in 2018 and was published in December of 2019.
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The patent description details including a third screen at the back of a foldable smartphone so the user can interact with the phone without unfolding it into a tablet. Notably, this is the same concept used by Samsung on the Galaxy Fold which had an in-folding design with a small screen at the back that can be used when the phone is folded.
Interaction on the user interface surface during the closed state of the foldable display device may allow the user to select content to be shown on at least one display screen of the foldable display device on the interior section during a subsequent open state of the foldable display device.
Additionally, the user interface surface may be configured to allow an object produced (e.g., drawn or written) on the user interface surface to be stored for display on at least one of the first display screen, the second display screen, or the user interface surface. The interface will also allow users to transfer content to the bigger screen if they unfold the display. This could, in theory, allow seamless switching between displays and could improve the overall user experience.
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