Apple Posts Job Listing For ‘Flexible Screen’ Engineer, Then Takes It Down

Is Apple preparing to invent a flexible screen in direct competition with Samsung Electronics? That appeared to be the case on April 1 when the tech giant posted and then pulled a job ad for a “flexible screen” engineer.

The project was posted on April 1 but then removed from circulation a short time later. The job posting called for a “Senior Optical Engineer” and said Apple, Inc. was seeking “a Display Specialist to lead the investigation on emerging display technologies such as high optical efficiency LCD, AMOLED and flexible displays.”

Apple recently filed for and received two patents for flexible devices. The patents would allow the company’s OS to change modes as its display was manipulated by the user.

The post further stated that the senior engineer would be required to have “in-depth understanding of display technology, particularly LCD & OLED design & optical performance trade-offs, including optical design, viewing angle, color and white point management, gamma and dimming control, visual performance and artifacts; and characterization metrics.”

While Apple files thousands of patents that are never used by the tech firm, this most recent job posting appears to verify that the company is at least investing in research & development for the new flexible display technology.

Apple has not revealed why it decided to pull the ad, perhaps it was posted prematurely or perhaps a senior engineer already working at the tech giant jumped at the chance to work with flexible displays.

If Apple hopes to win the flexible screen space it might want to hurt, early talk about Samsung’s flexible displays have been positive for the most part, a fact that gives Samsung the immediate edge in the flexible display space.

Here’s a look at Samsung’s own flexible screens for mobile devices:

Of course we won’t count Apple out regardless of how late they are to the flexible display game, after all the company has made a business out of adapting technologies late and then prettying them up for mass consumption.

Are you ready to use a smartphone with a flexible display or do you prefer the currently available flat screens?