iPhone is sleek, but the candybar form factor doesn’t appeal everyone. Apple needs a variety of form factors before they can dream of taking over the phone industry. Recent "dual sided trackpad" patent filed by Apple talks about one such possibility – flip phone or cam shell.
The patent illustrates a design, which separates the display and the capacitive touch sensor array into two units. The touch sensor array is actually a translucent (or perhaps transparent) panel, which is touch-sensitive on both sides. The two units are connected with a hinge. When you close the device, the transparent touch panel is covering the display unit, and can be used as an ordinary iPhone. Unwired View has some Photoshop mockups of the patent:
PS: Yeah, even I am drooling over the sexiness of the design.
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