Comment by game_the0ry
6 days ago
Not a fan of foldables, if I am honest. Just a personal opinion. I do not like the it feels in the pocket bc the device needs to double its thickness when folding over.
When a mobile device manufacturer (samsung, hauwei, now apple) makes a foldable, I get the impression they're running out of ideas with the "slate" form factor and are trying to stimulate sales.
Personally, I would want that R&D spend and innovation to go to more sustainable materials, longer lasting devices, and easily repairable parts to extend the devices useful life.
You and me both, but I also recognize others disagree so ultimately, we'll see what the market decides.
Apple's annual gross profit was $195B last year against an R&D budget of around $35B. So, they've got more than enough spare change to throw around. I'm sure whatever they're spending on foldables isn't impairing them financially in any way.
I'm more concerned for what it means for focus, fragmented ecosystems, user experience, etc.
From Jobs: "People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of many of the things we haven't done as the things we have done."
> we'll see what the market decides
The market && apple's choice of either pricing it aggressively or pricing it so that nobody can afford it. Both have equal weighting here.
The Z fold has succeeded enough that I see it out and about even outside tech-circles. Oppo and Google have had multiple generations of well-recieved folables too, despite not nearly having the marketing machine of someone like Apple.
The new Samsung fold 7s while folded are less than a mm thicker than an iPhone 17.
And it feels like a regular phone when folded. Not noticeably thick at all.
Some folks just have to complain for the sake of complaining, must give them a little dopamine hit or something.
Or maybe they haven’t held the very latest. The 6 was notably thicker.
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But its a samsung. Deal breaker.
> When a mobile device manufacturer [...] are trying to stimulate sales
> more sustainable materials, longer lasting devices, and easily repairable parts to extend the devices useful life
What they are doing, like all for-profit companies, is focusing on profits, for better or worse.
What you are suggesting (and what I'd like to) directly works against the goal of making more profits, literally all of those things will lead to less income for them.
I also want those things, but realistically, because of the economic systems we have, those things will never be the focus, because the market doesn't reward those things, and doesn't seem likely that'll change either.
I don't know what the solution is either, status quo simply sucks, with no escape in sight. Seems to be getting worse in fact.
The solution is legislation and regulation.
In a capitalist system, those are the only ways to get for-profit companies to care about externalities (which is what sustainability and longevity address).
It's definitely not due to running out of ideas. I have a Galaxy Fold and love it. I owned it for about two months before my wife went out and bought one for herself. And everywhere I go people want to look at it and play with it - quite remarkable.
I haven't encountered any issues with apps not supporting the wider aspect ratio. It's one of those cases in which Android's up-front investment in more flexible software paid off. Android apps were harder to write up front because they had to support resizable layouts from the get go, but by the time stuff like foldables were introduced the software library was already ready for it all.
Think it'll last 5 years? I don't strongly care one way or the other about the form factor, but if it's more expensive, less durable, and has a worse camera, then I'm perfectly happy to have a one-piece phone.
I don't know but honestly I tend to lose, destroy or want to upgrade phones within five years anyway. So I'm not that sensitive to how long they last. I don't remember when I bought this one but it's probably 2-3 years old now and so far there haven't been any issues with it.
For me the ability to read on a bigger screen is the selling point. I flip it open to read things all the time. Feels like a small book.
Electric car drivers have range anxiety, and I assume foldable phone users have fold anxiety. Do the OS integrate some counter versus Mean Folds to Failure?
Tbh I think the microsoft neo (or was it the duo?) was the "best" - have 2 (or more) screens but put them on a hinge. You can get one big screen with whatever panel quality you like (hell, make it a cheap or transflective if you want), or you get a smaller screen if you wish.
There's a reason the Asus Duo is so much cheaper than the ThinkPad Fold X1 and all other OLED "folding" screen devices.
> Personally, I would want that R&D spend and innovation to go to more sustainable materials, longer lasting devices, and easily repairable parts to extend the devices useful life.
Apple probably leads the industry in sustainability–the MacBook is 60% recycled material.
They’ve been working for years to be carbon neutral by 2030.
Details at https://www.apple.com/environment/
The issue with repairability is always the conflict between water resistance, thickness and feel vs the compromises to that needed to make removable batteries or back cases work. There are ways around it but the vast majority of the market prefers solid near glued together phones so that's what companies make.
> I get the impression they're running out of ideas with the "slate" form factor and are trying to stimulate sales.
I think we've just reached the local maximum of the phone design and adding folding gives two different branches to go down: 1) same size screen unfolded but smaller folded size or 2) folded with an external screen roughly the same size as a normal phone today but it expands to a much larger one unfolded. We'd kind of reached the peak size that people can reasonably pocket so option 2 allows for even bigger screens for people willing to pay without having to have a second device (something like a tablet).
The folds do add functionality and I think there's an impulse that leads people to say they don't see the point of something just because they're not interested in it personally.
> the vast majority of the market prefers solid near glued together phones so that's what companies make.
the vast majority of companies only make solid near-glued together phones, so that is all anyone buys.
if apple made a phone with replaceable batteries with a bit more thickness and some compromises on water resistance vs. cost, you'd actually see the consumer preferences play out.
> The folds do add functionality and I think there's an impulse that leads people to say they don't see the point of something just because they're not interested in it personally.
you're going to have to go through some real mental contortions to support foldable phones as consumer choice while treating repairability/replaceability as inherently not worth it because you like slim designs.
> if apple made a phone with replaceable batteries with a bit more thickness and some compromises on water resistance vs. cost, you'd actually see the consumer preferences play out.
We already went through the period of offering both and people preferred the thin hard to repair slabs we have now. There were quite a few phones made during the transition to the current state and the overwhelming purchasing choice was eliminate replicable batteries.
I'd love it if we could make slightly thicker phones (I put cases on my phone still I'm not chasing absolute thinness contrary to your assumptions) with the same battery capacity and feel, but there's a lot more of a trade off than just a little thickness when you go back to the old replicable battery. You lose a lot of capacity vs volume when you make the battery removable because it needs it's own plastic shell and you have to have a water resistant cavity to insert it into. Both of those eat up probably 10-20% of the capacity you can place in the same area with a bare(ish) lithium polymer pack that goes into the current design.
It's nice to believe people would agree with you if only they had the choice companies have stripped away from them to make again but it's not like people didn't have a chance to buy repairable smartphones over the current version already.. Most people just don't really think about replacing their phone's battery ever until it's a problem.
> the compromises to that needed to make removable batteries or back cases work
Seems like they are going to have to make that compromise, at least in the EU market. User-replaceable batteries from 2027 onwards, unless they are willing to quit the market (probably still requiring screwdrivers, but hey, its something)
Unlikely because the law includes this out for manufacturers, manufacturers are exempt from the user-replacement rule if their devices are waterproof (IP67 or higher) and utilize ultra-durable batteries that retain 83% capacity after 500 cycles and 80% capacity after 1,000 charge cycles. That's skipped over in a lot of the headlines about the law.
A lot of phones these days are at least IP67 if not better. My Pixel 8 is IP68 so it comes down to the battery capacity retention and how well they can game that measurement (slower charging etc for the measurement) but most phones are pretty good at that afaik.
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Or, alternatively, they feel like they finally cracked the code and think they can do it better. That's when Apple finally enters a market.
Consider how much money they put in to building a car to cancel it when they decided they couldn't, in fact, do it better. I'm sure there are hundreds - maybe thousands - of failed prototypes along the way.
They will be using a Samsung screen, so just no. Stop repeating this false trope. Didn't happen with the vision pro, and won't happen here.
Opposite opinion. I have the Huawei trifold, and it's by far my favorite phone I've ever used. I'm typing this on that phone right now, half-unfolded to square mode.
I don't care that it is a few mm thicker than other phones when it's in my pocket. It's so much better than a regular phone for everything from reading books to writing email to watching YouTube, and it's also a slightly thicker regular phone. It also has a pretty good UI for moving apps to side-by-side mode, which I use so often that I'm 100% sure I will never go back to a regular phone.
I think it's because they're running out of ideas too BUT the current generations of foldables (galaxy fold 7 for example) are essentially indistinguishable from non folding phones when closed. Yes, that means they could have made a thinner phone over all - the Galaxy Fold is the same thickness as the iPhone 17 pro max but both are twice as thick as the air - but I think consumers have gotten use to thick heavy phones - its why the SE and air don't sell as well IMO
A lot of the iPhone design decisions have generally had the nature of something I didn't like that some market research must have shown to be in demand. And so the iPhones have kept getting bigger, even though I've held on to my 4, 5S, and SE's for dear life.
People seem to want them, so Apple end up selling them. We're probably in the minority, and I can't fault Apple for not turning down the money.
Although I do wonder how the hell cases and screen protectors work for foldables.
I know people who put up with Android because they want a foldable phone, to be able to read documents more easily without carrying two devices. They're clearly not for everyone, but the relative sales of Pro vs Air or Mini suggest that these will be more popular than this suggests.
iPhone useful life is already pretty great. I'm using one regularly from 2020 (as a work device) - better than any laptop I've ever owned including classic-era Thinkpads have lasted as a daily driver.
Try the RAZR style folding phones. It trades length for thickness which is a godsend for me. I hate how unpocketable phones has been ever since like 10 years ago.
Me neither, but I see a lot of foldables in the wild and I'm far from any tech hotspots, like the Bay Area and Austin.
I want a foldable to make the device smaller in my pocket. Like an iPhone Air that could fold in half like a fliphone.
That is likely what it will be. The iPhone Air was probably just a test to see if all the super-thin components could work. Now they'll throw a hinge in the middle and a screen on the back. It'll end up being 2 or 3mm thicker, because of the bonus screen.
I was hoping for a small phone as well since I’ve read rumours about the display being 5.3in when folded. However it also said 7.8in unfolded, which implies 4.1in × 3.3in folded… quite big and squarish.
You mean like a Galaxy Flip?
I considered the Z Flip many times, because I want something that is smaller by default. But people who have used one have regular display issues. I'm hoping that Apple somehow nailed this better than the competition.
The thinness and low weight of the Air is also great though. I hope that Google makes a Pixel like that, so that I can have a phone with GrapheneOS that is this thin/light.
I guess a foldable phone that unfolds to be that large kind of competes/kills the market for iPad, so this kind of user probably expects to store the device in a bag instead of pocket, and use bluetooth / smartwatch / siri to interact hands free instead of pulling the phone out all the time.
The iPad lineup has forked into two classes that seem to be drifting in the direction of “alternative laptop” or “portable television” respectively. A big folding phone would maybe eat into that second case somewhat, but I still view it as a distinct specialization. The difference would probably be clearer if they set up iPadOS to be viable as a shared multi-user/family device instead of assuming it must have a single owner.
not necessarily, some foldables are almost as thin as a usual phone even when folded. But as much as I like flip phones aesthetics, I do agree there lot of other meaningful areas where the R&D spend is actually needed
My two favorite Apple products are the iPhone Mini and the iPad Mini. This foldable iPhone looks like it might give me both?
Personally, I think it's nice that companies make products that appeal to different kinds of people.
I just want to be able to use my apple pencil in my phone :(
The last two Apple products I purchased for myself were:
- OPENSTEP 4.2 --- for use on a NeXT Cube w/ a Wacom ArtZ tablet
- Newton MessagePad
I've been waiting for Apple to make a product which I want to use since the Newton was shut down, making do w/ a succession of Windows tablets and a Wacom One display attached to my MacBook, and a Kindle Scribe (recently upgraded to a Coloursoft), and a Galaxy Note 10+ --- being able to use the same stylus on all of my devices is quite nice.
Perhaps Apple is also running out of ideas.
Their ideas have rarely been about form-factors or product categories (every knew what a tablet was before the iPad).
To be fair, they ran out of ideas in 2010, if not before.
Apple Watch and AirPods were certainly category-defining products, some people would also argue that the iPad was. So 2010 or before is certainly not fair.
The MacBook Neo is a new idea. It’s also a device most Apple skeptics didn’t think was possible.
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> Personally, I would want that R&D spend and innovation to go to more sustainable materials, longer lasting devices, and easily repairable parts to extend the devices useful life.
Does the broad market care about sustainable materials? What does that even mean? Almost no one buys something because of sustainable.
For longer lasting devices, people like buying new phones. The iPhone has pretty much not changed in the last 5 years. People just like buying the new and best
Same thing w/ repairable parts. People just like buying new things. And it's not a conspiracy theory, it's just observed behavior.
So I'm glad they're trying something, because as much as you would like these other things, the broader market of consumers don't care. Yes profits are a useful proxy for value people place on your activities. Not perfect but in the long run if you provide a shitty experience you're likely to lose.
I want a headphone jack.
The purpose of a foldable is to reduce the lifespan of a device, and therefore sell more devices
Apple's MO has never been to make junk that breaks. They're as valuable as they are largely because of their reputation for high quality products.
They made the worst laptop keyboard of the last 3 decades, and put it in their $1000 laptops, AND then refused to update it until 2019 when it could've been fixed a whole year earlier.
Straight junk, forced onto all of their laptop buyers for multiple model-year updates.
Sure, they have a reputation for quality today (in general), but that wasn't even a decade ago and you've already forgot. Classic apple discourse.
But they still make repairs very difficult in case of accidental damage, random failure, or inevitably battery wear.
Glued batteries, soldered storage, keyboards and screens that absolutely aren't designed to be swapped out in the event of damage. There's still an element of planned obsolescence even if reliability/quality generally seems better than the competition.
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Are you talking of Apple Records? They're mostly valuable because of the Beatles. Vinyls rarely break under normal usage.
I'm sure you're not referring to the flaky accessory company.
> Apple's MO has never been to make junk that breaks.
Have you never used their cables? I don't think I've seen a single Apple cable lasting more than a few years if they're being used daily, the only ones that last are the ones that are kept static for the entire time.
Their computing hardware is great otherwise, no disagreement there. But their cables are the polar-opposite of whatever engineering methodologies they use for their computing hardware.
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Careful what you wish for. Making devices easily repairable increases thickness.
Not neccesarily: https://www.ifixit.com/News/113171/iphone-air-teardown
The irony here is that the iPhone Air is exactly the test device for their foldable, so their foldable will probably be just as repairable.
> bc the device needs to double its thickness
Considering how many people are dailying >6.8 inch phones (already massive in the average sized pocket), complaining about a thickness of 11mm* is just small brain behavior. I guarantee the weight is what you're noticing more than the thickness.
As someone who's into foldables but doesn't use one, the benefits are very real, especially if you read a lot of articles/blogs. Only reason I'm not using one is I can't afford the ones I want. How is a smaller phone, that's ideal for 1-handed use while having an expansive screen available at any moment, "running out of ideas"??? I like large screens, and I like being able to fit it in a small chassis. That's all it is.
* Samsung, Oppo, and Google's currently available foldables are all under 11mm