A flexible, folding Microsoft Surface Phone is in the cards as Microsoft acquires patent
The future of Windows phones is about to unfold, and fold back, literally.
According to a patent filed in 2014, Microsoft is most likely experimenting with, if not developing methods to create portable devices, like smartphones or tablets, capable of changing their configuration by physically bending their flexible display.
The illustrations included in the patent are rather detailed and suggest something beyond a simple concept. The design is decidedly evocative of the Surface Book, and supports different configurations, such as tent-mode, clamshell and a laptop-mode where the two halves of the screen are at an angle, with the bottom one possibly featuring a keyboard, or other virtual controls.
If this seems a little too far-fetched, let’s remember that this is the same company that, for several years, has worked on rebooting the dream of untethered virtual reality, and augmented reality, with HoloLens, as well as baking into Windows 10 an entire sub-system dedicated to holographic and virtual content.
This is also not the oddest patent Microsoft has filedfd in recent years. A design for a configurable Windows 10 virtual trackpad was also filed, which hints to the possibility of using paired devices, like a Surface Phone, or even Android devices (through an app), as direct input devices for PCs running Windows 10. While some configurations are obviously geared towards gaming, virtual controls could be made available, to simulate keyboards, trackpads, graphic tablets, and more advanced input methods.
While it’s unclear whether this newly discovered patent pertains to the Surface Phone, Microsoft is decidedly not out of the smartphone game. With that said, it’s also unlikely that Microsoft will build a conventional smartphone, considering that its flagship devices boast very unique and unconventional designs.
Microsoft is also looking to power future portable devices with ARM chips, said to be capable of running a desktop version of Windows 10, as well as Win32 desktop apps.
This could mean that what we have been speculating as being a smartphone, could have a lot more in common with ultraportable PCs than with any other mobile device.
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