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Plastic, obviously.

Glass can't fold in half. Really thin glass can flex, but it can't really fold.

And of course NO material will hold up being folded repeatedly. Cloth can handle a lot of folds, but it still fatigues and fails eventually. Plastic will develop a crease and eventually fail, so will metal, glass will break. The ONLY practical solution for a flip phone already exists, has existed for years, and should be obvious - separate screens with a robust hinge.
Ultra-thin glass used in foldable phones is considered "real glass" because it is made from the same basic materials as regular glass (silicon dioxide, sodium oxide, calcium oxide) and shares the same fundamental chemical composition, but is manufactured using specialized techniques to achieve an extremely thin thickness, allowing it to be flexible while still maintaining the key properties of glass like transparency and durability, when properly treated.

This information is readily available online. You are severely misinformed, I'm afraid.
 
I'd like to see this tech in normal phones. Not for folding... but I wonder if a deformable screen might help with general durability?
 
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Plastic, obviously.

Glass can't fold in half. Really thin glass can flex, but it can't really fold.

And of course NO material will hold up being folded repeatedly. Cloth can handle a lot of folds, but it still fatigues and fails eventually. Plastic will develop a crease and eventually fail, so will metal, glass will break. The ONLY practical solution for a flip phone already exists, has existed for years, and should be obvious - separate screens with a robust hinge.
This might be true in the early days of foldable phones about 5 years ago. Foldable phones today use UTG as the substrate and a plastic film over the UTG glass.
 
I guess it would make sense to create a thin device first, to squish all the parts into the form, then make it fold in subsequent iteration.
That was my first thought about the upcoming 17Air, DrJR. Get the internals and thermals figured out with that and then either fold it in two or open it out to a x2 size tablet. 17Air is proof of concept in many ways.

But if it DOES fold out, to essentially be two 17Airs.... Yeah that is going to be expensive. Fold is probably more likely.
 
It’s no point of a foldable because we still only gone be able to view one app at a time but I imagine that it would be more durable then most foldable phones today that’s about it
 
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I have a Samsung Z fold 3 & 4, flip 6 and I highly recommend apple doing flips and folds. 🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌 who is using apple vision unpro. They need to shift their focus on smartphones what people loved them for the most.
 
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It doesn't really need a point, or to solve a problem.

It'll sell like hotcakes simply to people who want to try the new formfactor and are tired of the same old design the last 7 years.
 
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I just cannot see any material holding up to folding and unfolding thousands of times a week
You use your phone that many times a week? Even if thousands is only 2000 times, that would mean you're reaching for and using your phone 285.7 times a day, or about once every three minutes, assuming a 16 hour day.

Actually that doesn't sound impossible for someone who's REALLY busy every waking hour, but when do you find time to do anything else?
 
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it might be cool to get rid of the notch and island completely and put back a little non screen area at the top and bottom of the device to put the camera and sensors, but also use this space for nicer front firing stereo speakers. to me, an extra few millimeters of space for this plus better more direct sound (not bottom facing) is a win-win
I've thought the same thing for years, especially for having front-firing stereo speakers, but apparently Apple's design goal is to eventually have a truly all-display front, with the camera, Face ID sensor, etc. under the display, and no bezel at all, for the looks of it alone (some call it "immersive"), which for some reason Apple thinks is better than having front-facing stereo speakers, though I think most users would disagree with Apple on this. Maybe eventually Apple will use the display as stereo speakers, using some approach similar to the one used on some high-end TVs.
 
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I do. And it's not a gimmick, it solves a very simple problem:

*It fits in pockets.*

I've got my 14 mini and I'm holding onto it for as long as possible because every other phone is way too big to 1) use one-handed, and 2) fit in the front pocket of my jeans and still sit down. I prefer a smaller phone, but Apple's smallest phone is still 25% larger than the 14 mini.

What solves the problem? Folding in half. Easy. Done.
Unfortunately, I would guess a foldable iPhone will have a footprint somewhere between the current base iPhone and the iPhone Pro Max while folded and a new humongous iPhone display when opened. It will be targeted as some sort of Super Max or Ultra iPhone. The only way that Apple could justify a new high price for a phone is to make it a new gigantic phablet. The general public will only pay more money if they can get an even bigger phone.
 
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Plastic, obviously.

Glass can't fold in half. Really thin glass can flex, but it can't really fold.

And of course NO material will hold up being folded repeatedly. Cloth can handle a lot of folds, but it still fatigues and fails eventually. Plastic will develop a crease and eventually fail, so will metal, glass will break. The ONLY practical solution for a flip phone already exists, has existed for years, and should be obvious - separate screens with a robust hinge.
My clothes don’t fail from folding ever. Geez. Where do you even get your info? Some of the folding phones have glass screens that are tested for a few hundred thousands folds by independent test labs. You can fold them a hundred times daily and it will last beyond a decade. The crease is also getting less noticeable.
 
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Unfortunately, I would guess a foldable iPhone will have a footprint somewhere between the current base iPhone and the iPhone Pro Max while folded and a new humongous iPhone display when opened. It will be targeted as some sort of Super Max or Ultra iPhone. The only way that Apple could justify a new high price for a phone is to make it a new gigantic phablet. The general public will only pay more money if they can get an even bigger phone.

A iphone flip will have comparable screen size to a pro max when unfolded.

The samsung flip6 is 6.7" unfolded, the motorolla razr 50 is 6.9" unfolded. The pro max is 6.9", so from a "bigger screen size = bigger price tag" point of view, apple could choose to make theirs as large as the pro max; stick in the rest of the internals and then charge a $500 premium to the price of the pro max.

Any folding phone from apple will be at a premium price compared to any of their current phones; that'll be almost certain. The compromise would probably be a smaller battery and a downclocked cpu to compensate the battery life; but apple are not shy at all about releasing ever more expensive products.
 
Who wants this? Folding smartphones are nothing but a gimmick.

Why not? Having notebook style foldable with a larger screen for watching videos and reading while also being able to tuck it in my pocket is a win imo. Maybe we’ll even get split screen multitasking. As long as the devices are durable enough I can see a lot of applications where a larger screen would be beneficial. What I don’t really get are the people asking for the flip phone type of foldables, but maybe my pants just have deep enough pockets that can fit the larger phones.
 
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