Smartphone giant plans to bring foldable phones to you next year

Weve all seen a smartphone with all sorts of amazing features: wireless charging, facial ID, no home button... but I bet no one has ever come across one that folds.

Well, Samsung, the world's biggest smartphone maker is about to change that soon.

According to its Head of Mobile Koh Dong-jin, the smartphone giant is aiming to release a device with a foldable display in 2018.

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Koh said this in Seol, South Korea on Tuesday, September 12, 2017. He also revealed that the company still has to overcome certain hurdles before making the phones a reality. "We are digging thoroughly into several issues," he hinted.

Talks of a foldable smartphone have been circling around Samsung since 2013 when the company showcased a flexible display at the Consumer Electronics Show.

Elements of the technology have already been incorporated in its curved Galaxy Edge smartphones and industry experts are optimistic that Samsung's dream of releasing a foldable smartphone in 2018 is quite realistic.

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In May of 2016, a Chinese start-up called MOX promised to launch a "wraparound black-and-white phones made of graphene by the end of the year. There have been no signs since of those phones actually hitting the market," reported CNN.

But, Samsung insists it is on track to produce a full-fledged folding smartphone. "Foldable phones are on our roadmap," Koh said Tuesday.

The app obstacle

One of the hurdles Samsung will have to scale is to convince developers to tailor their apps to the new folding screens.

This fact was echoed by an industry analyst, Hong who was quoted by CNN as saying "what makes smartphones smarter is applications, especially third-party applications. If you have a foldable phone but most of your applications are not supporting foldable features... it would be meaningless"

If Samsung successfully launches a foldable smartphone - with its new Galaxy Note 8 receiving rave reviews- it will mark a remarkable change in fortune for the company after the debacle of Galaxy Note 7.