A new patent granted to Apple, today, suggests that the company might be developing a technology for self-healing displays for the future foldable iPhone.

Patent granted to Apple by the US Patent and Trademark Office suggested that the company might be developing this new technology. The patent titled “Electronic devices with flexible displays” suggests that the company might be raising the temperature of the display before bending for this to work.

Apple is known to be developing a clamshell-style foldable display for iPhone in partnership with LG. But before we move on to explaining how the tech would work, let’s first go through the current state of foldable displays. Samsung and LG have been developing foldable displays for a number of years now. But, all the foldable displays develop a ‘crease’ in the middle part of the display, or in front of the hinge, after a certain amount of time. Apple is developing a technology that would heat the hinge part of the display, before bending, so as the screen doesn’t develop the crease.

Heating the display is never appreciated. As the report notes, heating a plastic foldable display could allow the display to be more flexible, and malleable, but the higher temperature could have adverse effects on the screen. The result of this, when used over a number of times, would be a display that is rigid and prone to cracks.

The system Apple presents in the paper would use an onboard temperature sensor to detect the temperature of the device, and determine if heating the display is safe or not. If it is safe to bend the display, the sensors would determine which areas need to be heated. Then the pixels of those areas would light up to the maximum generating the heat, and ‘self-healing’ display. There’s also a proposal where the foldable display would use a screensaver to heat the display.

Apple is also known to be testing another version of foldable display that might solve the crease problem. The tech would work by developing a ‘void’ between the hinge, where the screen would rest.

What are your thoughts on the patent? Let us know in the comments section below!