I often ask myself that if Apple did decide to make a folding phone, what would it look like? Would it follow the design of the iPad Pro? With a flat edge design? Would it look like a MacBook? With a machined aluminum body and a wedge-design at the edge? Or would Apple just make it look like the iPhone X with a hinge on the side? Semin Jun believes it to be the latter.
Designed as a conceptual direction for a conceptual phone (I highly doubt Apple wants to build a folding phone right now, especially when the technology is so nascent and problematic), Semin Jun’s iPhone Fold looks exactly like a regular iPhone when closed, except without a notch. When folded, the iPhone Fold isn’t radically different to look at, aside from some much needed changes. For starters, in Jun’s future, even folding phones don’t have bezels and notches. The iPhone Fold conveniently fits a camera BEHIND its outer screen, and even turns the 6.5 inch Super Retina display into a speaker/receiver using piezoelectric technology. Obviously there’s no TouchID, so the two cameras on the outside perform facial tracking tasks, unlocking the phone. However, that’s just half the experience, because the iPhone Fold, as its name suggests, opens to reveal a bigger, better, glorious flexible display on the inside. (And the outer screen instantly displays an illuminated Apple logo in what might be one of the most delightful tech Easter eggs ever!)
Open the iPhone Fold and you get access to the smartphone’s hottest feature, its full-sized 8.3 inch display, that can be used either flat, like a tablet, or folded at an angle, turning your smartphone into a miniature laptop. The iPhone Fold has a few other surprising tricks up its sleeve, including a 3-lens camera that can capture incredibly detailed 4K videos while rendering the background blur in real time, as well as, wait for it… Apple Pencil support! With a hinge that not only allows you to bend the phone in half, but also lets you magnetically snap an charge an Apple Pencil, the iPhone Fold has the body of an iPhone, the aspiration of being a MacBook, and the functionality and soul of an iPad Pro… and truth be told, who wouldn’t want to live to see that day?!
Oh, and don’t @ me to ask what a folding iPhone would cost. I’m honestly not going there.
Designer: Semin Jun
