Apple’s latest iPhone 6S and 6S Plus are barely a week old, and people have started looking forward to its successor, likely to be called iPhone 7. Earlier this week, ConceptsiPhone showed off an iPhone 7 rendering, imaging what the device would look like. And now Apple has been granted a patent that has fueled speculations that the next year’s iPhone would feature a curved and flexible screen.
The Cupertino-based tech giant had filed a patent for this technology in 2013, and was granted the patent by USPTO earlier this week. Apple could use this “glass wraparound design” to show more content even without having to increase the phone’s size. The tech giant could fold the iPhone 7 display such that the photos and videos would appear as if they were coming from a “continuous loop,” says Phone Arena.
Apple could use the patent to give the future iPhones a spherical, cylindrical, or any other shape. The Cupertino company has also won a patent for a complex gesture-based system to enter passcode. It works in conjunction with TouchID fingerprint scanner. Traditional gesture-based systems require tapping alpha-numeric passcodes or biometric ones. But Apple’s new technology relies on “how a specific dot is tapped” instead of which dot is tapped.
iPhone 7 to have a new casing material
Separately, YouTuber Zach Straley uploaded a video featuring Apple’s newest devices submerged in bowls of water. Though the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus aren’t officially waterproof, the video showed that they are waterproof to a certain degree. If a recent report from Mac Otakara is to be believed, the next year’s iPhone 7 could boast of a waterproof and dustproof design. The Japanese publication said that Apple alreeady had developed a few prototypes of the iPhone 7 that were waterproof.
The next-gen iPhone is not expected to arrive until September 2016. Mac Otakara added that the iPhone 7 will feature a new casing material rather than the Series 7000 aluminum used in the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus. What’s more, the iPhone 7 is rumored to be powered by a hexa-core A10 processor. Intel, Samsung and TSMC have been given the responsibility to produce A10 chips.
