According to foreign media reports, Apple’s latest patent shows that they are developing an all-glass iPhone with a surround touch screen. The patent’s U.S. patent number is 20200057525, and it’s called “Electronic Device with Glass Enclosure.” It describes a new iPhone that is made up of a "six-sided glass shell" and still has a front screen or "at least one side of the six-sided glass shell" that displays most of the controls and apps. So what kind of technology is all-glass?
According to Apple, any side of the full glass can serve as a screen, on which information, app icons and images can be displayed. This also means that the entire phone, which is made of all glass, supports touch-sensitive functions.
In fact, glass is already used in mobile phones to provide a transparent window on the touch screen on the front of the device. What is described here, however, is a phone with a casing that uses glass to define multiple sides of the casing. For example, a housing in the general form of a rectangular prism may include a glass front, a glass back, and one or more glass sides. In the above case, however, the entire casing of the phone, i.e. all outer surfaces, is made of glass, including the front, back and all sides of the casing. In this case, the enclosure may appear visually and tactilely seamless, such that the entire enclosure may appear to be composed of a single piece of glass, such that all-glass provides an aesthetic effect.
At the same time, all glass in all-glass has display functions. Therefore, Apple is considering using this feature to display information on the edge of the phone. This means that one of the phone's screens can be used as the "primary display" on which applications, games and other information are displayed, and the other displays will be used only for secondary information. For example, a front-facing touch screen can display or define a primary display area, such as a grid for displaying application windows, games, or selectable icons, while a side-facing touch screen can display a secondary display area, such as for displaying control electronics. Enlightenment of device capabilities such as speaker volume, ringtone, mute, screen brightness, etc. The back can display an additional auxiliary display area, which can display different content than the front or side.