Analysts and bloggers have speculated for a few years now that foldable phones were the next major form factor for the smartphone.
But while Lenovo and Samsung have demonstrated concept devices with foldable screens, and numerous other companies have filed patents, the devices have yet to materialize in stores. Nonetheless, a media outlet in Korea — home of LG — says that LG and Apple could have something in the works, citing unnamed sources.
Apple is notoriously tight-lipped on its future hardware plans, and building a device at Apple's scale would be tough. The technology behind flexible displays — called AMOLED — is really only made by two major players, Samsung and LG, and a handful of other suppliers. As it is, it's been tough to meet demand for this unexpectedly popular type of screen, especially at sizes smaller than a TV, analysts say.
"If Samsung were to launch a foldable smartphone in 2017, we believe Apple would likely not follow suit until 2019 at the earliest," Gene Munster, then a senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray, said last year.
Still, Apple has teamed up with LG on displays before: LG's UltraFine 5K Display is one of the rare non-Apple-branded products in the Apple Store.
Apple wasn't immediately available for comment. LG Display declined to comment.
Here's the original report from The Korea Herald, for more information.
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