Apple patents way to use an OLED screen to enable a folding iPhone that flips in half like it’s 1999 all over again

It’s time to party like it’s 1999: Apple has patented a flip-phone.

Admittedly, the phone depicted in the patent, spotted by AppleInsider, is rather more advanced than 2004’s Motorola Razr. The patent envisages a phone with a flexible OLED screen on the front, designed to fold in the middle with a more conventionally hinged back, allowing the whole thing to fold in half for portability.

Patents are not products, of course, and there’s every possibility that Apple may never ship anything using the idea. But it indicates a few potential changes in the company’s thinking.

Apple has yet to make much use of OLED screens. A newer display technology than the backlit LCDs that are used in every iPhone, iPad, Mac and iPod, OLED displays emit their own light without the need for a backlight.

As a result, OLED displays have darker blacks and bolder colours, as well as lower power consumption. The company has only used them in the Apple Watch so far, but OLED screens are widely expected to feature in 2017’s iPhone.

The patent was filed in July 2014, before the Apple Watch was announced, and what it depicts isn’t yet possible. While bendable or flexible OLED screens have hit trade shows, few shipping products have incorporated them, except for a few curved televisions and smartphones, and none have yet been demonstrated that can bend to the extreme degrees depicted in Apple’s patents.