By Debby Winters
If you don’t know the answer to that question, you may soon find out. Since innovation in the smartphone industry is constantly evolving and companies strive to come up with smarter and more sophisticated technologies that will give them that marketing advantage, they are looking to make changes in areas such as the display.
It is predicted that the display for smartphones will move from LCD (liquid crystal displays) to AMOLEDs that are self-emissive. AMOLED or OLEDs is a different approach that uses “active-matrix organic light-emitting diodes” to directly emit light. This technology will provide even sharper display with less battery drain. AMOLED display also allows the phone to be thinner and lighter, because it eliminates the weight and thickness of the backlight. The AMOLED screen further boasts a high pixel density, which provides sharper video and better-defined images that the user can read without having to zoom in. Further advantages include their ability to be flexible rather than rigid and have larger fields of view. While the advantages do sound great, there are also a few disadvantages that hold
this technology back from jumping right into our hands. This display type has a shorter lifetime, so would have to be replaced more often. The manufacturing cost is already higher and if that doesn’t come down, replacing your phone more often will turn into even higher cost for the consumer. Another thing that is holding this technology back is its lack of water resistance and we all know how important it is that your phone not die if splashed with a little water.
Making changes in things like the display, sensors, and battery life will not only make the smartphones get even smarter, but it is absolutely vital for survival. The smartphone is in a very high-stakes and competitive industry so protecting intellectual property for these new ideas is an absolute must. Companies are rushing to be the first to file for patent protection. It is predicted that one-quarter of U.S. patents issued in 2013 will likely be related to mobile technology. Protecting intellectual property in the areas of next-generation smartphone technology will allow companies not only to obtain a marketing advantage over their competitors, but also to use these patents in areas to change the competitive landscape of the smartphone industry.