14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft launched Surface Duo at the company’s hardware event on October 2, and even though this isn’t the first dual-screen device on the market, it still comes up with some interesting ideas that further improve this form factor.
Living proof is a recent Samsung patent that finds the use of a stylus with a dual-screen device actually pretty useful, so the company wants a future-generation Galaxy Fold to work with the S Pen as well.
Mostly like the Surface Duo already does with Microsoft’s Surface Pen, albeit there’s a chance Samsung does this much faster.
The first time we heard about Samsung bringing S Pen support to the Galaxy Fold was earlier this year, and judging from this patent, the company is very close to doing this on the next-generation model.
Launch next year?
The patent discovered by LetsGoDigital details how a stylus can be used to make the most of a folding phone, providing capabilities not only for drawing and writing, but also for interacting with the device in the first place.
For example, the S Pen can be used to move icons from one screen to another with a simple drag and drop gesture, and by the looks of things, this thing works even in the area where the two screens are connected to each other and fold inwards or outwards.
While patents don’t typically represent the living proof that a new feature is coming to mass production, there’s a chance this time it actually is, as Samsung is very likely to add S Pen support to the next-generation Galaxy Fold.
The only thing we don’t know is when this is supposed to happen, but I’m guessing that the plan right now is to roll out S Pen support for the Galaxy Fold sometime next year. The first-generation Fold is still a new product, so the second model should land pretty much at about the same time with Microsoft’s Surface Duo.