What I mean by sustainable is that is it a market that will grow, or will it wax and wain and remain relatively niche.
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Other A Foldable iPhone will Flop
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The AVP failed because it was an expensive 'luxury tech toy' in a very small niche market. AR headsets were and are always going to have a very small niche market, kinda like high end projector in the AV Enthusiast hobbies.
They are never going to enjoy widespread appeal. Heck even the Meta Quest, which is by far the most popular of the early AR headsets and best priced to be more attractive to a more widespread audience, is itself not a mainstream product.
AR headsets are not phones. They are never going to enjoy that kind of mainstream market presence. Apple wasn't trying to sell the AVP like their iPhone line. It was never meant to enjoy widespread appeal. It was a concept piece, that showed how AR could be used in certain applications.
It was not a concept piece. Apple thought the market was valid. It isn’t. And Apple under Cook represents what it was like under John Sculley: spikes in R&D spending with little new successful product. Tim Cook has contributed one meaningful product: the Apple Watch.
Apple spending a near decade on an Apple Car that failed miserably. Complicating Apple’s product lines. Cook, as Jobs said in his auto-biography: isn’t a product guy.
My point is that it was never intended to be a mainstream product or appeal to the same market size as the smart phone. At $3,500 the AVP was already priced well outside of what tiny market for AR headsets already existed and Apple knew that when they released it.
As I have said this is not a mass-produced or mass-consumer product/device. Heck even the process of ordering a AVP is cumbersome. This isn't something you just pick off the rack, so to speak, or quickly order online.
The Mac Pro is another example of a very expensive device that is only going to appeal to a small niche maket. The Mac Pro is a $7,000 desktop computer, and has absolutely no gaming appeal whatsoever. Computers like that don't really even exist anymore in the mainstream market, again unless they are targeted towards gamers, which again the Mac Pro most definitely is not. Yet Apple makes them, in low numbers, because there is a small segment of people that appreciate their user customization/expansion options.
Sometimes a company is wiling to spend money, on a low yield product, because they want to keep a foothold in that market, for possible future implementations.
This isn't unheard of.
This idea that Apple thought a computing paradigm that is entirely new to most people, and that starts at "more expensive than the average American's monthly take home pay" was going to sell like gangbusters is so ridiculous I don't understand who can possibly believe it. The people running Apple are really smart. They absolutely were not expecting the next iPhone. Now, that doesn't mean they are infallible, or that it didn't sell worse than they expected, but it's so clear the plan was always "really expensive gen 1, introduce people, start building content for the device, then in a few years introduce less expensive, slightly more capable device, get more users" repeat.
Again, that doesn't mean Apple's plan is going to work, or that it can't be true they thought they'd sell 500,000 units and ended up only selling 400,000 or whatever. But I've been saying since the price was announced the high price was probably designed, in part, TO limit sales. They could only make so many of them (500,000 if reporting is to be believed), they knew their content pipeline, and better to price it out of reach of most than sell it for $2500 and have a lot of people think Apple wasted their money.
Apple is a consumer product company. They develop and market products to the mainstream. They don't spend a bunch of time and money on something and want and expect it to be niche. The Mac Pro is more niche in that product line, and has had a tumultuous history of low sales to the point where Apple was rumoured to wanting to cancel it. Apple wants their Macs to be on everyone's desk, but they have failed in that regard. 85%+ of all Mac sales are from MacBooks. Apple has always struggled to gain the majority of marketshare in the desktop space since they were born as a company. They have tried and have never stopped trying, but have been unable to unseat Microsoft. Their M Class chips have helped Mac's marketshare, but they are still nowhere close to Microsoft's marketshare.
The AVP was something that Apple had spent years developing. Apple didn't just look at it as a set of virtual reality ski goggles to toy with, but an entirely new computing paradigm/platform. Cook went on at length about this new computing paradigm/platform - spatial computing - and how Apple was now bringing that to the world. Apple saw some of the modest success of Meta's VR headset... how Meta was basically building its own operating system, app store, and developer ecosystem. They saw a market coming, and they believed that they should enter it to compete and be number 1.
What we are talking about here is failure. Failure in the Mac space to be number 1 which is Apple's goal and has always been its goal. Failure to be number 1 and make VR headsets by Apple with spatial computing go mainstream. Failure even producing a working product after almost 10 years of development of an Apple car.
I won't derail this thread but I clearly articulated here at Macrumours before the AVP came out and when it was announced why it would fail, and why the entire VR product category will always remain niche, no matter the price of them.
If you do market research and read what is being discussed in AVP groups... it's that there is not enough content, the device is uncomfortable to wear for periods of time, it's a limiting computing paradigm and developers are not interested and disheartened by the lack of meaningful business to be had. This is where things like this end up. They end up in failure, they die, or they just spin in a niche cycle. So the question then becomes, what's the point? There isn't one, other than a "me too" product that ends in failure.
My position is that the same thing will happen with the fold.
It's not lost on me that these technologies are cool and fun, etc. I'm interested in a foldable smartphone. I'm interested in a AVP. But they are fatally flawed products at a fundamental level and my interest goes just to the point of pulling out my wallet, as they offer little to no value. Again, I understand there are people who will buy them and like them, etc. My point has simply been we're in niche territory and Apple has to ask itself in a serious way what it's doing with itself. Its butt is being kicked by Microsoft in software and Apple needs to desperately focus its resources on software to totally revamp all of its offerings. They also need to innovate in key areas like potentially eliminating notches from the screens of all of their devices, etc.
Went to Best Buy the other day to see the 17 PM in person. Looks great, feels great, and the blue color is nice and dark enough if I were to go with the 17 PM.
However, when leaving I checked out the Samsung line up out of curiosity. I never seen the flips / folds in person before until then. I was very impressed how well they handled, looked, etc.
I don't think they will flop but I think people will be hesitant at first myself included.
However, when leaving I checked out the Samsung line up out of curiosity. I never seen the flips / folds in person before until then. I was very impressed how well they handled, looked, etc.
I don't think they will flop but I think people will be hesitant at first myself included.
Thank you for your sharing your opinion. Everyone has a right for it.
Fold iphone will not flop. It cannot be compared to Vision Pro. Iphone and iPad are popular products already. The combined iphone and ipad feature will benefit immensely for people who love one device covering both like myself. Everyone has their own preference. My dream to have Apple ultimate two in one device will complete when iphone fold is released.
Which is expected because surveys on Macrumors are bias toward Apple including early adopters.
I do surveys here more to fuel discussion as it seems to drive more discussion.
Okay Apple, keep that iPhone Mini 17 locked away in your vault, but please give us a flip phone style foldable at least.
You should speak to people below the age of 20. Desktop computing is not a priority. The iOS/iPadOS and Android dominate as how people do computing. In that way, there is massive appear of a device that is everything. Personally, I feel obligated to bring my laptop on even a short trip people if I need to access virtual desktop for a quick work item I need a usable size screen. I'm actually considering getting a samsung trifold when they release it.
It will 100% absolutely be a niche product. I was getting sick of waiting last year and ended up trying out the Samsung Fold. That was a great experience except it was Android. I kept finding myself trying to make it an iPhone until I finally gave up. Here's why I think it will absolutely work.
Now apply the same logic to a foldable iPhone:
In the end whether many like it, love it, or have no need for it, we all win! Another option offered is never a bad thing. I look forward to seeing what they put out.
Now apply the same logic to a foldable iPhone:
- Compromised form factor: it’s essentially two phones sandwiched together. Thicker. Heavier. Awkward. No matter how sleek Apple tries to make it, the ergonomics will suffer.
- Display trade-offs: to fold, the screen needs to be plastic — not glass and optics will be degraded. That means lower durability, more scratches, and likely a visible crease, even if faint.
- No clear productivity gain: it won’t be large enough to replace an iPad Pro for serious work or multitasking. It’s not going to make spreadsheets, document editing, or design work better.
- It solves nothing: nobody is asking for this. It doesn’t address a real consumer painpoint. It adds complexity to a form factor that’s already perfected: the slab phone.
- It’s outclassed by existing devices: iPhones are great at being phones. iPads are great at being tablets. Laptops are great at being computers. A foldable iPhone is a master of none.
In the end whether many like it, love it, or have no need for it, we all win! Another option offered is never a bad thing. I look forward to seeing what they put out.
That doesn't answer my question or comment. What 20 year old or younger is at the supermarket buying food while playing games to where the NEED a bigger phone/foldable to tablet size?
I am not talking about firing up the app on your phone right now. I am talking about the NEED for the foldable in such situations.
This is exactly what I have been repeating here. This idea... this assumption, that anyone wants to use a tablet across a series of situations where they really just want/need a smartphone.
When I was commuting earlier in my career I had a 45 minute train ride to work. I would have loved a screen that opened up to be bigger than my iPhone to read, watch movies, or play games.
Would I have “needed” it? No. But if I had the disposable income for it I absolutely would have wanted it. I definitely wouldn’t have wanted to add an iPad to my briefcase that already had work’s chunky windows laptop in it.
Ok, I now understand better your point.
If anything but a market leader product means a flop, then you're right, the iphone fold will be a flop. No one in his/her right mind can imagine that a $2000+ phone will become an instant market leader.
But according to this logic, the iPhone Pro Max is also a flop because it is quite clear that it is not the number 1 phone in the world if the relevant metric is units sold. By this logic (a clear case of reductio ad absurdum), every company who launches more then 1 product in a certain category will have at least one flop because you cannot have more than one market leader.
The truth is that almost every top of the line product is at least in a way or other a niche product, which is quite natural and there is nothing wrong with it.
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Your question is wrong. It’s not about multitasking like shopping IRL and browsing online. It’s about having once device that does everything when you need it. You don’t need everything all at once but you can have one thing that does everything.
Now that iPad w
You got some of my point. What I’m saying is these products are not sustainable. There won’t be a market big enough for Apple to sustain them. That is different from an iPhone Pro Max. I am focused on these new category of devices.
I didn’t think the Apple Watch would fail. But I always viewed it as having limited value, but just enough to have a sustainable market.
Read the comment chain. My argument was at the point you NEED it, a laptop/tablet/etc will be JUST as easy to carry and much better experience. An example provided was waiting at an airport. It is just as easy and MUCH better experience to take your tablet out of your bag then flip your phone open.