The resulting ‘shallow and mild bump/recess’ in the center of the screen as the device ages won’t go down well with ‘designers, artists’ etc.
Give a 20.5” iPad Pro. Don’t fold it.
We’ll lap it up.
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Apple Working on 20.5-Inch All-Screen Foldable Notebook for 2025
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Give a 20.5” iPad Pro. Don’t fold it.
We’ll lap it up.
On a more serious note, I know there are people who love touch screens. I am not one of them.
In all my life I have found only good usage of a touch screen for my taste.
Playing the strategy game Star Trek The Next Generation Birth of The Federation, with a touchscreen. The GUI is perfectly designed for use with a touchscreen, even though the game was developed in the late 90s. I love playing it on my old (and only) windows 8.1 tablet with the atom CPU. Especially when playing as the UFP as the LCARS just looks amazing.
Other than that, definitively no point in that for me. And I am not even getting into the foldable part. that I find too stupid to even discuss it.
In all my life I have found only good usage of a touch screen for my taste.
Playing the strategy game Star Trek The Next Generation Birth of The Federation, with a touchscreen. The GUI is perfectly designed for use with a touchscreen, even though the game was developed in the late 90s. I love playing it on my old (and only) windows 8.1 tablet with the atom CPU. Especially when playing as the UFP as the LCARS just looks amazing.
Other than that, definitively no point in that for me. And I am not even getting into the foldable part. that I find too stupid to even discuss it.
I mean using sidecar. iPads have had standing cases/covers forever, so I’m sure Apple will make one for these.
Two 12.9 in iPads joined together would give us 18.7 inch. A 20 inch display is more like 13.9 inch if we assume each half is the same 4:3 aspect ratio we gave with current iPads, which is quite a bit larger. I agree about the glass though. The ultra thin glass they use right now is no better than soft plastic imo.
Tablet mode and desktop mode? MacOS when hooked up to external monitor, keyboard, and mouse/trackpad, and iPadOS when used as a tablet. Wish they would do this with the current M series iPads.
This! iPad hardware is already great, it’s the software that holds it back. How many times are you limited by iPad OS? For me it’s lots. How many times are you limited by your screen not bending? For me it’s none.
I also wish they wouldn’t be so obsessed with visual simplicity and touch screens at the expense of practicality. Sometimes buttons are good (I’m looking at you HomePod, with your stupid touch buttons that always result in me pausing something when I want to adjust the volume).
The juxtaposition of these two comments is humorous to me.
I'm more on erikkfi's side, but if the demand is there (which it obviously is), then of course Apple is going to try to meet that. As long as they still offer "traditional" notebooks, then everyone can be happy.
I'm more on erikkfi's side, but if the demand is there (which it obviously is), then of course Apple is going to try to meet that. As long as they still offer "traditional" notebooks, then everyone can be happy.
I mean, if something folds in half, then of course it makes it more portable (because it takes up less height x width...only the depth increases). I'm not interested in one at all, but just saying...
Replying to my own comment here but seriously has anyone seen this? I know it's not a foldable screen per se but for all intents and purposes the setup would likely be very similar. I think the versatility of a two screen setup with an external but attachable keyboard and a stand for propping up is unparalleled. I can see this being very useful for coders, artists and so many different kinds of workflows. Am I the only one here? At least Dave is on board haha
Portability is both size and weight. It doesn't get any lighter by folding it in half, and is instead twice as heavy as any other device at that size.
Sure, but the size is decreasing (that is, the square area, not the cubic area), thus portability is increased. Just because the weight doesn't decrease doesn't negate the size decreasing. And obviously it would be impossible for the weight to decrease. So, given two identically sized and weighted computers/tablets, but one being foldable and the other fixed, the foldable one is clearly more portable. Yes, obviously a lighter, fixed device that is the same size as the foldable one when it's folded would be more portable due to the lesser weight, but that's irrelevant because it's a totally different product.
Ok, I almost agree with you here. Almost.
A hypothetical 20" tablet/notebook doesn't exist today because its sheer size makes portability a problem, but if you can fold it in half down to 10", suddenly its a viable product because it can be transported (ignoring for a minute that the weight of such a thing could be a real problem for portability).
But is it really a viable product just because it can be transported?
Are you going to use a 20" product on your lap on the train or plane?
How do you even use this 20" product ( is it a notebook? Or a tablet?). Seems a very large hardware accessory is implied here for real use, making it even larger and heavier.
That's a different question. I'm simply arguing that if two devices exists, the only difference between them being that one is foldable and the other isn't, then the foldable one is more portable than the one that isn't. "More portable" and "portable enough" (i.e. "portable enough for it to be practical to take with me") aren't necessarily going to be the same thing and will vary from person to person.
I've said it a million times - give me a device that has a form factor similar to an iPad Pro, but turns into a fully-fledged MacOS computer, with no restrictions and comparable power to a midrange Macbook Pro when attached to a keyboard, mouse and monitor via thunderbolt, and there is no force in the world that would keep my wallet closed.
Nice, I would definitely pick up something like this if it had a full OS/macOS on it. Although I doubt they would do macOS because they would have to make it touch compatible, something they have resisted for a long time. iPadOS bleh, no thanks.
I would use it mainly as a 20.5" monitor with a wireless keyboard/mouse, but could also see it as being useful as a clamshell if they release a physical keyboard with real keys that overlays on the bottom clamshell.
Cool stuff. Color me incredibly confused at those who still ask why this is useful. If you can't figure out why a 20.5" monitor is more useful than a 14" monitor then you have bigger issues to worry about.
I would use it mainly as a 20.5" monitor with a wireless keyboard/mouse, but could also see it as being useful as a clamshell if they release a physical keyboard with real keys that overlays on the bottom clamshell.
Cool stuff. Color me incredibly confused at those who still ask why this is useful. If you can't figure out why a 20.5" monitor is more useful than a 14" monitor then you have bigger issues to worry about.
The crease has already been resolved on foldable phones, I'm sure that technology will follow to laptops soon as there are only what maybe 2 folding laptops in existence?
I'm also calling shenanigans on the pencil use. Using a stylus on my Fold 4 is very very good. Not perfect, 1) yes the durability is still a question mark, but in a year+ of use and abuse I haven't noticed any issues, but I can't deny that's a valid point and 2) the crease DOES get in the way of writing.
Durability, well we've had this debate before and it still doesn't look good for the durability naysayers at all. Although I have no idea what technology current laptops or Apple in the future might use so can't really make a determination. But if we are extrapolating today's folding phone durability, there is really very little reason to worry, especially with something like a 20.5" screen which is more likely to be used standalone versus phone.
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My guess is the Taptic Engine would need to be much larger, or multiple would need to be used to feel the haptic feedback on such a large device. Also, users are likely typing much less on an iPad with the wide availability of folios with keyboards. So you’d be sacrificing battery life and room for little benefit.
