Apple might be working on a new iPhone with a 5.8-inch display, according to a report published by Digitimes. Rumours suggest that the phone might be called Apple iPhone Pro, and may not become a reality till 2017 or 2018. This is being interpreted as Apple’s approach to employ a curved display on an iPhone. It should be mentioned that Apple was granted a patent regarding the curved displays earlier in September 2015.
Speaking to MacRumours, DisplayMate’s founder Ray Soneira suggested that future Apple products can have a folded display and may used a flexible OLED display. This will allow Apple to implement special buttons or gestures that could be called upon from a side swipe on the display. Currently, only Samsung employs curved displays on its Edge smartphone lineup. Soneira adds that Apple’s implementation of the curved display will be different from that of Samsung.
Soneira further added, "Because of their very flexible power management capabilities, OLEDs are not only more power efficient than LCDs for most image content, but they now deliver much higher peak Brightness than LCDs because of this. However, for mostly all white screen content LCDs are likely to remain brighter and more power efficient for a while. OLED displays can also be manufactured on flexible substrates, which allows the screens to be curved and rounded like on Samsung's Galaxy Edge and Galaxy Round displays. Right now the curved flexible OLED displays are protected under rigid glass, but in the near future OLED products will be foldable and flexible."
Apple's patent concerning the curved display suggests that the edge display will work as an extension to the main display, and offer virtual buttons and switches. It will also offer additional information to the main data displayed on the display. In a different patent, Apple has outlined three different shapes in which the curved display can be implemented. It could be a simple wraparound, or be squared, or even cylindrical.