No it's not an expectation. My 2014 MBP and I are not living in a fantasy world.
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Apple Testing Multiple Foldable iPhone Prototypes, But Has Concerns Over Display Technology and Market
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Seems like it should be impossible that a material could be folded many dozens of times a day and stay in decent shape.
there are people who carry both iphone and ipad to the gym? or to the movie, or to a nice restaurant?
come on...ipad is a language item, in airplanes, trains office, home
Foldable phones are search of a problem than a solution, in their current form.
Willing to bet the Fold 4 will be dust resistant. And you don’t seem to be a firm believer in folding screens moving forward. That’s fine. In due time your skepticism will be proven wrong. The folding iPhone is inevitable.
Foldable phones really don't make any sense, they are a terrible idea. They are completely missing the point of technological progress: We're striving to get any mechanical failure points out of our electronic devices (e.g. SSDs), not get more delicate and super-complex mechanical parts into them.
Samsung and the likes only came up with this idea because they were desperate to prove some sort of innovation just for the sake of it, and foldable phones was the most obvious "next big thing" they could come up with.
Give it a few years and the world will have realized that foldable phones are just as ****** an idea the second time around as they were the first time around.
Samsung and the likes only came up with this idea because they were desperate to prove some sort of innovation just for the sake of it, and foldable phones was the most obvious "next big thing" they could come up with.
Give it a few years and the world will have realized that foldable phones are just as ****** an idea the second time around as they were the first time around.
I want a tablet in my pocket. Folding phones. There is the solution.
All the doubters in this thread are going to feel foolish in a few years.
Absolutely. This trend is basically companies trying to find something compelling for the marketplace to differentiate themselves until the next big thing hits. AR and VR are absolutely the next big paradigm shift in computing. Foldables are just a placeholder gimmick.
I saw a guy using the Samsung foldable the other day. My first thought was, “why?” My phone screen is fine enough as is, websites are perfectly tailored to the portrait orientation of mobile devices. If I want something bigger, I’ve either got my iPad or my laptop, both of which have better aspect ratios than a square-ish screen. Plus, that crease that runs down the middle looks and feels horrendous. I can’t be the only one that feels this way.
Per https://www.whatmobile.net/General-features/article/pros-and-cons-of-buying-a-foldable-phone
Not a win win solution for phone owners
Nah, you’re just not thinking long term enough. Check out the new Apple TV+ film Swan Song for a preview of what’s to come. That’s probably a good 20 years off, but that’s where we’re headed. AR and VR is the future.
Current form? How would that apply to a foldable device from Apple that hasn’t been released yet? Nobody (Including you) here knows how a foldable phone from Apple will pose differently than the competition. That is, if we see a foldable from Apple.
Foldable screens at this point are just a management call. Either somebody at the top (or a committee) likes it and says go, or they say no.
Laptops are not opened and closed 100+ times a day, placed in your pocket, bag, purse and dropped regularly. Because if they were, not only would the hinge stop working, the rest of the device would be toast. It’s really just an issue of any moving device being susceptible to damage and failure, in a way that a non-hinged device is not. And again, companies have already gone through this process with foldable cell phones and they stopped selling them for a reason. You can pretend that it’s not an issue, but history and reality tell me something different.
Phones made watches unnecessary until they got so powerful we needed to wear watches to help the battery last all day. We stopped using paper maps because our phone had every possible map. But the demand for larger and larger screens has forced us to re-learn how to re-fold maps in order to put our phones away.
I still don’t see the appeal of folding phones. But maybe that’s because it just hasn’t been done right yet. I struggle to see how it can be implemented right though without running into any of the current issues, especially with trying to avoid a crease running down the middle of it?
If Apple can work their magic though then I could be tempted, but no idea how they could solve that amongst the other shortcomings.
If Apple can work their magic though then I could be tempted, but no idea how they could solve that amongst the other shortcomings.
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When we had flip phones back in the early 2000's people used to open and close them repeatedly without even looking at them. It was like a nervous habit we developed to either make sure we didn't lose it or to show off that we had the newest one.
It’s one thing to make the device and hinge dust resistant, but that still won’t solve the issue of a folding mechanism being more prone to failure than a non-hinged device. And another issue with dust, sand, change, keys, etc. that may be in your pocket when you put a folding phone in your pocket, is the screen will also be subjected to these items and face both surface damage and fracture. Folding screen phones, including the iPhone, are not inevitable. We’re more likely going to see movement away from large screened devices with AR glasses coming into play.
You might have a point about hinge durability if the folding iPhone used the same hinge design as a Razr, but similarly my MBPs hinge is much more durable than my TiBook or PowerBook Duo. Folding phones do not need to be opened 100 times a day because one of the exterior sides is also a screen so they can be used for regular phone tasks while folded. Smartphones are why folding cellphones, and candybar phones, stopped being popular. Now I had a cheap slider LG which didn’t last, but it’s mechanism was plastic because it was a free with service phone.
Well that really depends on what the foldable thing is for: is it for a larger device or a more portable device? This has never really been made clear. Should we make an iPhone that is the current size, but folds in half so you can put it in your pocket at half the size (a flip phone)? Or should we make an iPhone that folds down to current size, but unfolds to be a double iPhone?
I don't think iPhone is large enough to justify compromising the entire design just to make it fold in half. I doubt anyone would want that. And I don't think the iPhone suddenly becomes more usable if it unfolds to be twice the size it currently is. It doesn't become an iPad. An iPad needs a minimum size to be usable in its form factor, and that size is much larger than a double iPhone. Even if we could make an iPhone that expanded to be an iPad mini, it would still be a disappointing experience at that size, just as the iPad mini is. Even if you could make a perfect product that had no technical flaws and no physics limitations that get in the way, and it could be both iPhone Max and iPad Mini at any given time...I don't see myself ever using it as an iPad, because I'd rather use an iPad of appropriate size when using an iPad, and so would the overwhelming majority of the iPad market, as history has shown.
So does everyone else. The tech bubble is always interested in what comes next and what's theoretically possible, but the tech bubble isn't the market. Not even close. The market needs mountains of convincing that folding is worthwhile.
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yea, right, the same all saying since the fold 1 and already "few years" have passed..and they dont feel foolish after 3 years
Well I don't know if it has occurred to you or not, but if you take the largest iPhone, double it (aka "unfold" it), you still don't have anything that even approaches a tablet of usable size.
I completely disagree. We are about to hit massive growth in the folding market in addition to the folding iPhone arriving in roughly 3 years time.
I'm not sure where you are coming up with these failure stats. Is the Fold 3 failing for countless consumers? I would imagine it's not. And that durability will only get stronger as the technology matures at an accelerated rate in short time. Look at the massive difference between the Fold 1.0 and 3.0
The outer screen on the Fold 3 is gorilla glass victus and isn't any more fragile than what we have on the iPhone and other smartphones. Not an issue with items in your pocket.
AR glasses are a separate category. Smartphones will continue to thrive and grow in innovation for years to come.
I mean, at some point they HAVE to come out with a foldable display. Otherwise, how else are all of the Samsung fanboys going to belabor the point that Apple doesn't innovate?