Cool. I have massive interest in a folding phone. Cue the “who wants a foldable phone”.
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Alleged Foldable iPhone Specs Detailed in Questionable Rumor
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I just want the iPhone mini pro (only thing that needs to be pro is the camera).
Right?!
Every foldable iPhone to date has all been “questionable” for years now.
It’s as if Apple is pushing tidbits to MR for user feedback before doing R&D spending and development.
At this point MR should just wait until like 5 credible rumors starting with Ross Young come out in the same week or month before publishing anything.
I’d hate to any Foxconn employees in HQ country commit suicides from pressures like the iPhone 4 caused.
You won’t be saying that with AC+ costs and repair screen costs & wait times trust me on this!
What’s the saying again, careful what you …
I’d love an updated 13 mini … that would be THE productivity focused iPhone ever for those of us not into gaming on the phone or doom scrolling or finger banging the screen to show off fluidity lol.
Or the Pro’s to have higher than 120fps with all games supporting it. Give us 144/168 fps.
I’m sure Apple can make a decent foldable phone. Improving on the usability of the apps on a larger squarish screen. But I’m not convinced Apple can make and sell them at a reasonable price. The current top of the line Chinese foldables are priced at pro max level. For Apple they will probably priced it around $3k and priced themselves out of the market.
I suspect comparing unfolded thickness of single fold to double fold phones is not apples to apples. Are there any single fold phones that thin? If not, I suspect it’s because there wouldn’t be enough battery capacity to be feasible. So then we should compare single fold to single fold, double fold to double fold, etc. Or it might be reasonable enough to compare single to double if we compare only their folded thickness.
I’ve encountered about five or six people in the wild with folding phones. I don’t think I get out much so the number probably isn’t very telling. But more relevant I think is that they all really like their folding phones. Both clamshell style (owned by the non-techies) and book style (owned by the techies). But the screen folding durability has been an issue for some. Still, I think there’s a decent market for it already. And as folding phones get more durable and thinner (without losing function or battery life), the market size will only increase.
Each slice of the Mate XT contains a battery pack, so there's absolutely no reason to suspect battery capacity. If anything, the middle slice of the trifold has mechanical hinges on both sides, which makes less internal space available.
Huawei being a leader is no surprise. Even with the first gen folding phones, Huawei Mate X was 5.4mm thin. Samsung Galaxy Fold was 6.9mm. And that ignores the silly Samsung design that prevented the screens from folding completely flat.
The only thing stopping me from running a Fold already is Android so I hope Apple makes one sooner rather than later, have had the Galaxy Fold in different iterations but Android just doesn’t stick with me. If Apple were to say they would never release a foldable I would most likely switch just fort the utility of the foldable.
But (unless I’m understanding you wrong) that’s exactly what I’m saying—each folding section has a battery. So if you take away one section (comparing a 3 section phone to a 2 section phone), you would only have 2/3 of the battery life, which may not be good enough. In other words, the phone can only be that thin BECAUSE it has 3 sections/3 batteries. If Huawei removed one of the three sections of the Mate, yes it would still be crazy thin, but would it have enough battery life to be a practical device? That’s why I asked if there was a single fold phone that was as thin as the Huawei double fold. If not, then it’s likely either they have to make it thick to house a decent sized battery, or they have to do it like Huawei and make it a thin 3 section device to spread out the battery more so that the device can be thinner.
It would be 2/3 of battery life powering 2/3 of display area. The display is the most power hungry component. It seems reasonable to me.
Mate X6 was launched last year. It's a mainstream foldable at 4.6mm thin - which is already much thinner than anything Samsung. Mate XT is an ultra-premium device so it's much thinner. MacRumors claim that 4.6mm is "unrealistically thin" for a 2026/2027 product is just silly.
I really wish Apple wouldn’t go down this route. These devices are just not as durable as slab phones, the battery’s aren’t as good and neither are the cameras. The crease also puts me off personally. Unless there is something Apple knows that we don’t, folding something over and over again will eventually cause it to break.
I’m not sure a foldable iPhone will ever come to market. A foldable iPad might be a different matter, BUT and it’s a big one, they would need to fix the crease and make it highly durable, which i just don’t think it’s possible at the moment. But as tech advances, who knows what will happen in the future.
I’m not sure a foldable iPhone will ever come to market. A foldable iPad might be a different matter, BUT and it’s a big one, they would need to fix the crease and make it highly durable, which i just don’t think it’s possible at the moment. But as tech advances, who knows what will happen in the future.
Why would you wish for Apple not to enter a product segment that others want them to just because you wouldn’t want that product? I don’t wish for Apple to stop selling the normal iPhone just because I only buy the Pro (Max) iPhones.
For me they could slap iOS/iPadOS on most of the current gen Android foldables and I’d buy that instantly, I think the hardware is already there but I prefer the Apple software.
I can see Apple not releasing a foldable in the near future. If the product is too good it could lead to cannibalization of other Apple products. I recently read an article stating foldables accounted for less than 2% of the smartphone market in 2024. Currently foldables are still a niche product.
To be fair, I live in the USA and I used the OnePlus Open for a year and now the Honor Magic V3 Global is my backup, and they are both excellent foldables. The Pixel 9 Pro Fold is my primary phone though, because it has Wi-Fi calling which I have to have since I live in a rural area with subpar cell service and the Chinese phones do not offer Wi-Fi calling due to US carriers not supporting it (because they want you to use the phones they sell).
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I hate to break it to you, but the inner screen is ultra-thin glass and the outer screen is glass as well. They put plastic screen protectors on the inner (and sometimes outer) displays for protection. I always remove the inner screen protector because I'd rather feel the glass and I've never had a scratch on my inner screen and I've owned 9 foldables since the Z Fold 3 now.
2000 : We are in a megahertz war
2010 : We are in a frames per second war
2020 : We are in a tokens per second war
2030 : Latest rumours suggest Apple will introduce a folding phone in response to Samsung who have released a new Samsung Note that folds 8 times.
2010 : We are in a frames per second war
2020 : We are in a tokens per second war
2030 : Latest rumours suggest Apple will introduce a folding phone in response to Samsung who have released a new Samsung Note that folds 8 times.