Just when you thought the iPhone was reaching the end of its tether (why would you think that!), Unwired View uncovers an Apple patent filed on 6 September 2006 that describes a handheld device with a clamshell form factor, two multitouch surfaces and, among other things, an FM radio.
When closed, the device would be your usual iPhone, a tad shorter and sans the buttons—because, clearly, it has way too many of those. On flipping it open, the top half would lose the multitouch goodness but the translucent bottom half will retain it, presumably to enable you to have an overlay of a regular phone keypad on it.
In my opinion, however, the whole concept is inherently flawed because it does not solve one major problem with the current iPhone—tactile feedback. Unless it facilitates having more buttons for the SMS-junkies, I'm not sure there's much of a point in having a clamshell iPhone.
Of course, it is just a patent so there's about as much chance of Apple releasing this exact device as my becoming a guitarist one day (and I'm not even trying)—take it with a huge chunk of salt. Our improbability meter went off as soon as we heard the words "radio" and "tablet" mentioned in the Unwired View story.
Look at the diagrams and let us know whether any of it makes any sense to you. Would you buy the iPhone shown in that patent application, assuming that it was released?
Primary category: iPhone
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