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Is the iPhone’s potential 4 inch display a realization of this patent?

All of the news regarding the potential 4 inch display on the new iPhone reminded me of this post from Patently Apple that I read awhile back. The patent describes a use for a “smart bezel”, in which the bezel of the iPhone acts as a secondary/auxiliary display, potentially to add extra controls for gaming and/or productivity purposes.

If you look at the current iPhone (4S), this kind of functionality would be limited because the bezel is comparatively very small. There is not a lot of room for auxiliary buttons. If you’ll notice in the mockup above, there is considerable room above the home button, definitely more than that which is on the current model of the phone (photo below for comparison). Apple’s surprise factor has been significantly reduced in past years with increased contacts by media to suppliers in order to get ahead on predictions of hardware. But what if they have something in mind that could really throw a curveball? Some people, such as Marco Arment, have discussed (on his show Build and Analyze) how the extra screen real estate wouldn’t be particularly helpful to remedying some of the largest constraints of the iPhone’s screen, such as it’s ability to display and navigate photos. For that, argues Arment, it would need both a longer and wider screen to accommodate more space to show off photos. (Back to my views) But then it runs the risk of getting into the ridiculous sizes of some of the Android phones, in particular phones like the Samsung Galaxy note which is basically a mini tablet marketed as a phone. 

I think Apple has bigger plans for this longer screen, assuming it does become a reality. It would accommodate an intriguing patent such as this, and throw a curveball into their design reasoning that I have yet to see mentioned in the tech press. I’m interested to see if the 4 inch display happens, and if so, what ends up being the benefit to its existence.

Posted May 17, 12 #iPhone #Apple #new iPhone #4 inch display #Wall Street Journal #Patently Apple #patents #tech news #conjecture

"If I wanted to be a dick, I’d suggest that these surveys skew toward Android because Android buyers are more likely to be dumb enough to waste time answering market share surveys. But I don’t want to be a dick, so I won’t."

Posted May 3, 12 #john gruber #apple #mg siegler #funny #android #iphone #tech