Samsung has unveiled its much-anticipated foldable phone during its developer conference in San Francisco on Wednesday, urging Android developers to start writing apps for it. The showcased device folds out into a tablet and back up into a candybar-like form factor. The device includes a cover display that acts as a phone, and a main 7.3-inch tablet display.
At the conference, Samsung announced this device, calling its foldable phone technology the Infinity Flex Display. Justin Denison, SVP mobile product marketing, showed a prototype of the device saying that Samsung will be able to start mass production of the Infinity Flex Display in a “matter of months”.
Folded in two it appeared to resemble a thick phone, but Samsung did not give media or developers a chance to touch or see the device up close.
Google is working closely with Samsung for the launch of this phone next year. Google is providing guidance for developers to start using existing features that are built into Android to support these foldable displays. “Google would work with the developer community to bring more features to the phone,” said Glen Murphy, Google’s head of Android UX.
Samsung is among a handful of developers working on foldable phones. Huawei reportedly plans to launch a 5G smartphone with a foldable screen in mid-2019.
A Chinese display making start-up, Royole unveiled a foldable Android phone with a 7.8 inch screen last week. The company has priced it from around $1,300 and announced that it would start filling orders in late December this year.
