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Apple Testing Multiple Foldable iPhone Prototypes, But Has Concerns Over Display Technology and Market
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Somehow, I think by the time fold tech is perfected, the next thing will have overtaken it.
Plus the occasional odd man out that have actually used it and like the tech.
I still wonder if there is a way Apple could make this work. I read an article earlier today about a group of ex Apple employee’s who are now work at a startup called Humane. Apparently they have filed a patent for a screen less worn device (not glasses) that somehow projects information that the user can interact with.
Via lasers, apparently, which sounds like those virtual keyboards that project onto any flat surface that have taken the world by storm (they haven’t). It feels kinda like Magic Leap, to me, but we’ll see if it ends up like that or not. I wish them well, of course. At least they’re trying something new, doing their own thing rather than suing to force Apple to let them play in their playground!
They just need to be aware, ANYTHING Humane creates, THEY WILL HAVE A MONOPOLY ON! Folks will have pitchforks at the ready!
Just don't expect something out of the movies. We can't even get bug free desktop OS after 40 years of development. AR will have tons of bugs once people look past the excitement.
Likely. They sell GPUs and old cartridge games and don't want American scalpers and fraudsters (like WATA) buying up all their stock and making gamers angry.
I may well be wrong but I just don't see Apple producing something as awful as the current iteration of folding phones. The hinge even on the best examples just seems so antiquated and anti Apple's design philosophy. People seem to think the current paradigm, physical screens, is the way it has to be. I believe (and I'm and old guy who has been using their products since the early 90's) Apple are preparing to go beyond this. Think Different.
Yeah, it's not just that but also building an ecosystem. You want to see that restaurants menu in AR? With the limitations I'm hearing you won't be able to just pull up their internet page (if they even have one), so their would need to be some sort of database the AR device would have to pull from to display. Same with price shopping at stores. Directions might not be as bad since Google and Apple would have that covered. Plus with the limitations I don't think the internet, as we envision it today, will really look that great, how about news articles, etc.
AR seems more like a companion device, it will be very useful but you are always going to have some sort of phone screen when you need the "old" internet. I'm cautiously excited about it, but at the same time it seems like a pain to always wear some sort of headset or maybe it's just an addon to glasses, especially since I don't wear glasses at all. And that's if they can even get this technology into something approximating a light, durable, and fashionable pair of glasses.
The dumbest CGI visualisation of AR I saw on social media was someone showing how AR menus would work with plates of food appearing on the table. This is the last thing a good restaurant wants. Any good restaurant that respects their kitchen doesn't put food images on their menu, so floating AR food would be out of the question.
A fast food restaurant already has photos on the wall.
Techno-utopians always come up with daft ideas and don't know how real businesses and people think.
When it comes to the AR glasses, it's an odd thing. I wouldn't mind seeing notifications appearing instead of pulling out my phone or lifting my sleeve to look at my watch. But do I really want to pay another maybe $1000+ for a third device that does the same thing my other two devices do? I'm not sure. What does it do for me that I don't already have?
When I'm sitting at my computer it becomes less useful because I already get information and notification in front of me.
Physical screens aren't going anywhere though. They will be around for as long as people will be.
There's actually a big comeback right now for Sony Trinitron based CRT monitors among gamers. That's another subject.
OH they know, they just still want to see come to light!
It’s like the xMac, just because there’s not much a market for such a device, doesn’t mean that folks can’t describe scenarios in which it would be ABSOLUTELY required! 
That's the one big part of the problem, the other being tech companies hurrying to meet their needs somehow, in order to keep/increase profits, even today when (useful) tech has reached some point at which they can't inovate that much. Instead of focusing on fine-tuning available solutions. Vicious circle.
Nah they’ve shoved plenty of stuff out the door knowing full well it has a lifespan of about six months. “The new ipad” ipad 3, Intel MacBook Air, etc.
They have yet to do it to an iphone but I doubt the first foldable will be an iPhone.
The Z fold 3 is 16mm thick closed vs about 8 or 9 for the iPhone 13. It's close enough to 2x that I'm fine with saying that's what it is .
But I'm not arguing from my use case. How many people do you see carrying 2 devices NOW? I see very few. I see a lot of people with phones only. It doesnt matter what you want or what I want, it matters whether there's really demand in the market at large.
So, if the argument for a foldable is "all those people who carry a tablet and a phone will want one", there don't appear to me all that many of them. There ARE niches, of course (I can see students as one of these) but that's not argument to do a product. Look at how many people wanted and still want a device the size of the iPhone 5... Yet Apple barely serves that market with the SE and Mini. There are people who want something even smaller but I doubt you'll ever see it. Not everyone can have a product that they would like.
Something no one has talked about yet, too, is that if a foldable iPhone doesnt expand into a standard tablet size, we now need apps to adjust well to a new sizes or they'll look odd. And given that we have a split with iOS and iPadOS on phones and tablets respectively... what does this foldable phone run? If you're about to say "it shows as iOS when folded but iPadOS when unfolded... that's a software challenge that apple would need to take on and they'd need to figure that the market is big enough for these to be worthwhile.
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People don't carry tablets with them because it's impractical -- too heavy and big to put in any pocket. But if they could, who knows. I probably wouldn't, but I like making the phone smaller to fit in your pocket better, so the Flip3 fits that want...
Let me first start off by saying that people have different lifestyles and choose to incorporate technology into their own lifestyle in different ways.
For me, an iPad mini provides no more utility than a smartphone.
Now again this is just for me, but to do any more than I can do on a typical smartphone screen I need at least a regular sized iPad. To do any more than what I can do on a regular sized iPad I need at least two 27" monitors.
Others will disagree with this and that's fine. They have a different lifestyle from me and choose to incorporate technology into that lifestyle in different ways.
I have to ask, what benefit does this provide?
The only thing I could see being desirable is a faster refresh rate. Do CRT monitors refresh at a faster rate that flat panel monitors?
Plenty of examples online.
Almost no input lag, very low black levels, faster refresh rate and of course low resolutions look sharper than they do on flat panels because there's no fixed resolution. That doesn't mean they are suitable for everything but for gaming a top CRT is hard to beat.
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Everything is a gimmick until apple releases it as always in the eyes of many apple fans.
AR headsets for me are a good 5-10 years away from ever being a thing.