When talking about how Apple is gonna take over mobile phone industry, one of the things that are very rarely talked about, is iPhone form factor.

Apple is truly aimed at winning the world phone market and the factor that might help it immensely is iPhone form factor. What’s that? Look…the world has already seen hundreds of phones of various shapes and sizes. Some people prefer a clamshell or a slider than a phone of the traditional shape.

So iPhone has come up with a number of solutions:

• A Clamshell:

This image is just a reproductions made by the description in Apple’s recent patent application. What does it mean? Well, it might mean that Apple IS working on a brand new iPhone successor, BUT with a twist in the tale!

The idea is the following: separate the screen and the sensitive touchpad. Then put the touch sensor array on a translucent (transparent) panel, make this panel touch sensitive on both sides - top and bottom and connect them with a hinge

When the screen is closed you see just an ordinary iPhone screen through a transparent touchpad. When the screen is open you get two parts: a multi-touch-active pad and a display proper. Moreover, when the screen is open the device can show the standard T9 keypad.

The trackpad can be sensitive on both the sides simultaneously. Thus you get three axes for action.

When the cover is closed the device works like iPod Touch

So do we really need these additions? Well… the new technology makes the device twice as small as it is now. Moreover, some people just like the shape of a clamshell so iPhone will be even more popular.

At the same time the shape of the new device is very similar to the new generation of iPhone Nano. Perhaps it is a brand new Nano! The same size of the device, but the size of the screen is two times bigger. Sounds great.

• Apple Tablet

The recipe: you take a laptop, put all the working stuff behind the display and turn the bottom part into a transparent dual sided trackpad. iTab is ready.

When closed, it is a device with a multi-touch screen. When open – a standard laptop with the bottom end functioning as a keypad and the top one – as a screen.

What can we conclude? For instance, it is a common knowledge that quite a number of patents remain only on paper. Nevertheless some of them might become the next big thing!

via

http://www.cellmad.com/iphone-magic-new-shape-for-iphone/