Samsung gives first glimpse of foldable phone

SAN FRANCISCO: Samsung unveiled its much-anticipated foldable phone in San Francisco on Wednesday, urging Android developers to start writing apps for it. The South Korean tech company needs to get the foldable phone right to reverse steep declines in profit for its mobile division and restore some of the cachet its brand has lost to Apple. Foldable phones promise the screen of a small tablet in a pocket-sized device. Justin Denison, a senior vice president of mobile product marketing, showed a prototype with a screen he said measured 7.3 inches (18.5 cm) diagonally. Folded in two it appeared to resemble a thick phone, but Samsung did not give media or developers a chance to touch or see the device up close. Dave Burke, vice president of engineering for Google’s Android software platform, told a Google conference in California that Samsung planned to introduce a new Android-based device early next year. “We expect to see foldable products from several Andro...