During the Samsung Developer Conference 2019 keynote, Samsung was outlining One UI 2, its proprietary User Interface for Galaxy devices (and beyond).
As part of that presentation, Samsung reminded the audience (developers) that it was the original company to have developed the folding user interface concept, then worked with Google to take the concept essence into Android 10.
The message for developers is clear: with Samsung, they can be on the leading edge, practically one year before things become mainstream, and that’s enough time for apps to be ready when the products finally hit the shelves.
To show the One UI 2 adaptability, Samsung also showed a new foldable concept: a vertically folded display, very much like what Motorola is rumored to be doing with the foldable RAZR phone. The idea is simple: take something like the Galaxy S10 / Note 10, make the screen a bit longer and foldable.
This new “flip phone” concept would allow for an even larger screen (vertically) with much better dual-and multimedia capabilities than today’s classic smartphone phones.
In many ways, the updated One UI 2 user interface has been optimized to handle this use case where all the content is at the top, and the interactive elements placed at the bottom to have a seamless one-hand experience.
The design seems easier to implement than the Galaxy Fold’s although it addresses a bit of a different market. Devices like the Galaxy Fold will essentially kill 7 to 8 inches tablets when the price comes down, but this flip design works more or less like a very fancy flip-smartphone.
This new OLED flip can either make the screen noticeably bigger or make a phone considerably more compact in the vertical axis. Either is desirable, and both could be compound, to a point.
We’ll venture to guess that such a design may appear as a new product as soon as MWC 2019, and perhaps seen as a sneak peek during CES 2020 in Las Vegas.
We’ve been using the Galaxy Fold for several weeks in a real-world situation, so come back to Ubergizmo and subscribe to our notifications to know when the full review and Camera IQ scores for the Fold are out.
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