Apple Is Exploring Curved iPhone Screens and Touchless Control

The future is coming.

It would be cool if the next iPhone had a gracefully curved look and instead of touching it, you just gestured like an orchestra conductor—or a lunatic. Right?

If this Bloomberg report is accurate, that may happen, whether it’s actually cool or not.

Bloomberg indicates Apple wants to create a phone that partially functions by gesture. That is, you could swipe over an app without touching and it would respond to the motion. At the same time, the tech giant is allegedly moving toward a curved smart phone.

From Bloomberg:

Apple is also developing iPhone displays that curve inward gradually from top to bottom, one of the people familiar with the situation said. That’s different than the latest Samsung smartphone screens, which curve down at the edges.

 So far, every iPhone model has used a flat display. The iPhone X’s OLED screen curves slightly at the bottom, but the shape is mostly invisible to the human eye.

It’s hard to take the bit about the curved screen all that seriously—the below is from a video about a curved phone rumor posted back in 2013. It seems to be a permanent part of the Apple rumor mill.

As Bloomberg didn’t get any comment from Apple—they never do comment—there’s no way to know the arrival time on either feature, or if they’ll happen at all. The anonymous source who supplied Bloomberg with the inside info did say the curve may show up within the next three years or so.

So there you go. Just a few more years to go and we’ll finally have an iPhone actually designed to curve with the butt when it’s tucked in your back pocket.

h/t Hypebeast