← Back to context

Comment by selectodude

10 hours ago

I'm kind of surprised that Apple hasn't full throttle on foldables. I'm more apt to spend $2500 on a foldable iPhone than I am $1500 on an iPhone and an iPad. I don't think I'm alone here.

7 comments

selectodude

Reply
CharlesW  10 hours ago

When they introduce their first foldable device this year, keep in mind that Apple has been ideating on and prototyping concept devices with foldable displays long before working prototypes of foldable screens existed. The first Apple patent related to devices with flexible displays was filed in 2011. The first Apple patent related to hinges for foldable devices was filed in 2015.

Foldable device prototypes were publicly demonstrated in 2013. It took five years for the technologies required to enable foldable devices to become mature enough to ship bad products. It took another five years for them to mature enough to meet Apple's scale and quality requirements.

This isn't a "moonshot" (which take decades to build), but hardware innovations like this regularly take a decade to properly productize.

upmind  9 hours ago

They're quite scared to take risks I think, from what I heard it seems it was meant to be released already but they've delayed it a bunch, I wonder if in part due to AVP failure.

  • mercutio2  7 hours ago

    “Scared” to “take risks”?

    This is a bizarre way of saying “if they ship it and it has reliability problems, they know they’re skating on thin ice”.

    Apple’s brand has taken a beating (I’m as aghast with the latest macOS as the next nerd), but people love that when Apple ships a product, it generally works and the hardware doesn’t break.

    Butterfly keyboards are a terrible stain on the hardware team’s reputation. “Scared” is the wrong word for how these things work.

stackskipton  10 hours ago

Rumor has it this year will be release of iPhone fold. They wanted to fix the creases.

Which seems pretty standard Apple. Let others do something, see how it plays out then launch their version of it.

  • ebbi  7 hours ago

    I'm hyped for a iPhone Fold as a concept.

    But the leaks I've seen of the size, makes me less excited about it. The phone when folded looks a bit wider and squatter than my Pro Max. And when open, it's smaller than my 11" iPad.

    I see the promise of this concept with the tri-fold phones, where when expanded is closer in size to an 11" tablet.