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KmanOz

macrumors regular
Oct 27, 2007
175
267
The Galaxy Fold fundamentally DOES NOT WORK. It’s differentiating factor, folding is utterly broken.

Booooom. TKO
[doublepost=1556179767][/doublepost]
An OLED display on 10e with a small hole vs an ancient LCD with rabbit ears on Xr at the same price point is a major win for Samsung, and this comes from someone who owned iPhones for more than a decade. I love my Xr, but that Thick bezel screams 2010

And yet the XR is currently the most popular phone in the US. You worry about bezels and rabbit ears whereas the bulk of the users worry about the overall experience of owning an Apple product.
[doublepost=1556179907][/doublepost]
If Samsung are able to fix it then it could be a different story

Six years of development to release this product isn't going to get fixed in a couple of months. Or should I say it may, but it will be a band aid, ready to ripped off again with a little real world use.
 

Rygaard

macrumors regular
Jun 24, 2010
158
206
Denmark
Well it worked great in the no dust lab, in super clean lab-coats ...... no plan survive the battlefield...
 

smirking

macrumors 68040
Aug 31, 2003
3,758
3,735
Silicon Valley
I wonder why they rushed it!

Because it's a halo product meant to create an impression that Samsung is now the leader in smartphone innovation. Selling enough units to make money from it probably isn't a major concern. They just needed to be first and make a splash by doing so.

Unfortunately, belly flopping wasn't the kind of splash they had in mind.
 
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decafjava

macrumors 603
Feb 7, 2011
5,210
7,328
Geneva
I just looked at the iFixit page, no headphone jack. Sigh. ;)

Oh and a ton of cameras - good move but I guess they had room.

Display needs a complete redesign I think. I do think they did something bold and this concept may have some traction in the future. Not for me but maybe for others? I still think some may like this.
 

calstanford

Suspended
Nov 25, 2014
1,419
4,306
Hong Kong
I think this is indicative of a bigger problem than most people realise, or at least, care to admit.

https://daringfireball.net/2019/04/know_when_to_fold_em

1a1bce36ef6f9204fbd253dbbc2d849a.jpg
Read up on Korean culture (e.g. Korean Air incidences) and you know why no one spoke up
 
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dilbert99

macrumors 68020
Jul 23, 2012
2,193
1,829
So debris can fall into that gap and then get trapped between a metal plate and the underside of the screen?

I think the verge and their apparent 'clay' incident is unlikely to have been the cause of that devices demise judging how this is constructed.
Where have we seen that before, aha, the apple butterfly keys...what samsung need now is to borrow apples fix and put a membrane across the gap to stop things getting in, or better still wait until apple gets a fix to their fix to the dust issue and then use that solution.:D
[doublepost=1556187385][/doublepost]
Most companies don’t try to get away with selling prototypes. But hey, First!
Butterfly keyboard, antenna gate, bend gate...? most companies will make a mistake at some point in time.
 
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Tiger8

macrumors 68020
May 23, 2011
2,479
649
And yet the XR is currently the most popular phone in the US. You worry about bezels and rabbit ears whereas the bulk of the users worry about the overall experience of owning an Apple product.

When did Xr become he most popular phone in the US? Last I heard shareholders are suing Apple for hiding lackluster iPhone X sales numbers. Did I miss something?

But that is not my point, my point was Samsung managed to do something Apple wasn't able to do, at a good price point,they deserve some kudos for that just like they deserve to be criticized for the stupid fold phone
 

AnthonyHarris

Cancelled
Jun 4, 2009
510
580
Cambridge, England
Be serious.
Apple fully presented Airpower on stage while also setting the expectations for how it will work(I don't know if that would be possible without testing an almost finished product).
The embarrassing part is that they couldn't even make it work in more than 1 year since the official reveal.
You are just trying to see things in a certain way not how they are really like.

They fully presented it and how it would work and realised after the fact that it wasn't possible. Yes, it is embarrassing, but I doubt they have a warehouse of Airpower devices, unlike Samsung, who must have thousands of these phones ready to ship with all of the clearly faulty design quirks.

I think I am seeing reality pretty clearly, thanks.
[doublepost=1556195694][/doublepost]
Where have we seen that before, aha, the apple butterfly keys...what samsung need now is to borrow apples fix and put a membrane across the gap to stop things getting in, or better still wait until apple gets a fix to their fix to the dust issue and then use that solution.:D

Apples mistakes really don't justify those of Samsung, in fact, you would think they might have actually learnt something from them.
[doublepost=1556195778][/doublepost]
Yep and we offer free 2 year insurance with our £2,000 product so if it fails you will get a replacement.

More like when, not if.
[doublepost=1556198624][/doublepost]
Firstly Apple has had major production issues in the past and blamed it on user/operator error before sheepishly doing a recall.
Secondly this is the price of innovation there will be glitches (though Samsung should have tested more internally.)
The Huawei Mate X does not appear to have the same issue and is way ahead of the iPhone when it comes to innovation, curious to hear the spin Apple fans have for it. As consumers we should applaud new choices, not hope for their failure based on the company.

You can keep your 'innovative' folding phones and the lumpy, fragile, easily dented plastic screens they rode in on. Hows that for spin from an Apple fan?
 

Darth Tulhu

macrumors 68020
Apr 10, 2019
2,252
3,776
I got the original iPad the first hour it came out. I don't remember anyone not being excited about the iPad (and certainly every person i showed it to was excited about it). If anyone wasn't excited about it they were simply an Apple hater.

Hmm, the entire phone industry is abuzz with excitement regarding the "folding phone trend".

If anyone isn't excited about it then they are simply a non-Apple hater?

Regardless of how I personally feel for a product (I also was excited by, and still have and use the original iPad), there will always be some people out there who refuse to see the potential of a device, for whatever reason. I saw it with the iPod, the iPhone (Ballmer's famous laugh), and the iPad ("just a big iPod Touch").

It's simply interesting to see it happen now from the other side of the Apple fence.
 
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Abazigal

Contributor
Jul 18, 2011
19,689
22,247
Singapore
Firstly Apple has had major production issues in the past and blamed it on user/operator error before sheepishly doing a recall.
Secondly this is the price of innovation there will be glitches (though Samsung should have tested more internally.)
The Huawei Mate X does not appear to have the same issue and is way ahead of the iPhone when it comes to innovation, curious to hear the spin Apple fans have for it. As consumers we should applaud new choices, not hope for their failure based on the company.
I think there is a difference between applauding new choices, and being so eager for something new to the smartphone market that we voluntarily blind ourselves to the obvious flaws and the reality of the situation.

Which is basically what every YouTuber reviewing the Galaxy Fold was basically doing right down to the moment when Samsung cancelled sales of said product.

I stand by everything I said before about the Galaxy Fold being a flawed concept right from the very start. I believe that folding screens belong more on wearables than on smartphones, ironically enough.
 

Darth Tulhu

macrumors 68020
Apr 10, 2019
2,252
3,776
So true. Yes, it is an issue but it's almost like they think it cancels out Samsungs design flaws. (Written from my Butterfly Keyboard. Still going strong after over a year!)

For the record, and from someone who is excited by the idea of folding phones/tablets/phablets and believes it should be vigorously pursued, I agree wholeheartedly with the assertion that both Samsung's Galaxy Fold is a disaster and that failures with Apple keyboards are NOT relevant to the discussion of Sammy's product.
 
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smirking

macrumors 68040
Aug 31, 2003
3,758
3,735
Silicon Valley
Read up on Korean culture (e.g. Korean Air incidences) and you know why no one spoke up

Didn’t Samsung identify their issue with obedience to hierarchy as one of the reasons why the Galaxy Note 7 had to be recalled and vow to fix it? Or am I thinking of something else with another Asian company?
 

Mainyehc

macrumors 6502a
Mar 14, 2004
864
419
Lisbon, Portugal
The dirt ingress point seems like an easy fix, but it is inexcusable how this made it past any kind of testing.

Someone somewhere said: Frak it! Go ahead and build it.

As much as I think a tablet-in-your-pocket is a cool idea (and not the "solution in search of a problem" many here are proclaiming it as), this device is a HARD lesson for Samsung. And Huawei showed them up anyway with a better-thought-out device.

Although again, too early for this.

It's interesting to see reactions here though, the "cool device but not ready" vs "pointless device that should not exist" and the "release it when it's ready" Apple philosophy vs "release it when we can" Google/Samsung one.

Personally I think both drive the tech forward: Sammy to release first, and Apple to perfect (although without Steve I doubt Apple's capabilities here).

Well, for starters, I agree with almost everything you said. Apple has had its fair share of products – in fact, most of their lineup – that weren't exactly the first in their respective categories, but they were either extremely perfected from the get-go (the iPod, the AirPods and even the HomePod with it's incomplete software at launch), or revolutionary enough to keep people interested in them (the iPhone, the Apple Watch…).

These last two are a typical case of deeply-flawed, yet delightful first-gen Apple products; people seem to forget the iPhone 2G's software didn't even feature an App Store or (*gasp*) copy and paste, and Apple was heavily chastised for those ommissions. As for the Apple Watch, retroactively called Series 0, I should know about its shortcomings because I own one. I love it to bits for the convenience it provides as an actual watch, notification relay thingy and occasional timer, but third-party apps feel like utter crap, and the battery life only suits me because I've been on a lazy streak ever since I bought it; I recently put it through its paces during a ski trip, and every single day the poor thing had to be recharged back at the hotel if I still wanted to use it during the evening.

But, you see, other companies also produced crappy firsts, for years on end. Microsoft and its abominable Windows Mobile (not Windows Phone, that was actually a nice system, which I'd have very much preferred to see as a standard instead of Android) comes to mind, but one thing those devices didn't do was spontaneously combust or break after a week. Samsung didn't use to be like this, either, and they had already started experimenting with a lot of technologies a few years prior (in fact, many of the technical innovations Apple makes use of at the component level, especially the screens, do come from Samsung). So, something definitely changed inside of that company, mostly because of Apple and other competitors; they really lost their shame and let themselves go on QA.

One thing did similarly change inside of Apple: they became more cavalier when it comes to pre-announcements. It did start with the iPhone, during Steve's tenure, and the same happening with the Apple Watch was also understandable, as there was no Osborne Effect to be had with either launch; but the others were really a case of Apple having waited out (or dragged on with their R&D) a bit too long, then pre-announcing stuff also way too early, and feeling the need to grab their market's attention and do some “Osborning” to their competitors' products. It did feel a little desperate and ”me-too” (in its old, pre-#metoo meaning), and not just “look at these perfected products we came up with”.

The AirPower fiasco is probably the most telling example of that (Apple was super late to the wireless charging game, to the point they released a Qi-compliant phone without the first-party charger to go with it; it's patently ridiculous), but it also revealed another worrying trend (albeit one with a relatively minor impact, as you'll soon see): they are also getting more cavalier with their innovation on secondary product lines. The only product line Apple absolutely can't fail at is the iPhone; whether you like it or not, they are the “iPhone company”, and if they have one misstep, they're doomed (the fact that they don't do like other companies and launch a metric ton of different models each year – and no, three new phones is not much – also raises the stakes much higher). But when it comes to accessories and the Mac, they don't really give a damn. I can picture this conversation going somewhere at Apple Park: “AirPower's reliability is unknown at this time? Screw it, it's just an accessory and it's cool so let's pre-announce it”. And maybe if Steve was still around, but definitely if the iPhone didn't even exist, you can bet those stupid butterfly keyboards would've been scrapped already.

The thing is: Apple is now so huge that a multi-million fiasco can feel like peanuts to them, and people will similarly either overlook it, or put up with it for a few years (I do believe they'll eventually fix the keyboard-gate, the flex-gate, etc). Back during Steve's days, not that long after the company had been on the brink of bankruptcy, any fiasco like that would've severely damaged the company's reputation. To this day, the “beleaguered” spectre still prevails, albeit in a bit of a dissimulated fashion. Apple has always been a quirky company, and some people had wanted it to fail from its very inception, but the dark ages of the '90s provided them with the perfect fodder to peddle the “beleaguered” narrative and it sort of became a meme that was heavily circulated until a bit after Steve's passing. I predict it will take another decade until people and reporters get completely used to Apple being a successful company and stop predicting its demise at every juncture, much like they don't with the likes of Google, Microsoft, Samsung et al.
 
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clangers23

macrumors 6502
Oct 27, 2016
325
446
That's a real shame, I like the idea of a folding device. It's been suggested that Samsung's rush to market and it appears subsequent lack of real world testing may in part be due to a Chinese rival allegedly obtaining Samsung's folding OLED technology. Samsung therefore rushed it to market as they wanted to be the first to release a folding device given the time they've invested in designing it.

It does seem like a pretty glaring design flaw allowing debris into such fragile technology.
 

Darth Tulhu

macrumors 68020
Apr 10, 2019
2,252
3,776
Well, for starters, I agree with almost everything you said. Apple has had its fair share of products – in fact, most of their lineup – that weren't exactly the first in their respective categories, but they were either extremely perfected from the get-go (the iPod, the AirPods and even the HomePod with it's incomplete software at launch), or revolutionary enough to keep people interested in them (the iPhone, the Apple Watch…).

These last two are a typical case of deeply-flawed, yet delightful first-gen Apple products; people seem to forget the iPhone 2G's software didn't even feature an App Store or (*gasp*) copy and paste, and Apple was heavily chastised for those ommissions. As for the Apple Watch, retroactively called Series 0, I should know about its shortcomings because I own one. I love it to bits for the convenience it provides as an actual watch, notification relay thingy and occasional timer, but third-party apps feel like utter crap, and the battery life only suits me because I've been on a lazy streak ever since I bought it; I recently put it through its paces during a ski trip, and every single day the poor thing had to be recharged back at the hotel if I still wanted to use it during the evening.

But, you see, other companies also produced crappy firsts, for years on end. Microsoft and its abominable Windows Mobile (not Windows Phone, that was actually a nice system, which I'd have very much preferred to see as a standard instead of Android) comes to mind, but one thing those devices didn't do was spontaneously combust or break after a week. Samsung didn't use to be like this, either, and they had already started experimenting with a lot of technologies a few years prior (in fact, many of the technical innovations Apple makes use of at the component level, especially the screens, do come from Samsung). So, something definitely changed inside of that company, mostly because of Apple and other competitors; they really lost their shame and let themselves go on QA.

One thing did similarly change inside of Apple: they became more cavalier when it comes to pre-announcements. It did start with the iPhone, during Steve's tenure, and the same happening with the Apple Watch was also understandable, as there was no Osborne Effect to be had with either launch; but the others were really a case of Apple having waited out (or dragged on with their R&D) a bit too long, then pre-announcing stuff also way too early, and feeling the need to grab their market's attention and do some “Osborning” to their competitors' products. It did feel a little desperate and ”me-too” (in its old, pre-#metoo meaning), and not just “look at these perfected products we came up with”.

The AirPower fiasco is probably the most telling example of that (Apple was super late in the wireless charging game, to the point they released a Qi-compliant phone without the first-party charger to go with it; it's patently ridiculous), but it also revealed another worrying trend (albeit one with a relatively minor impact, as you'll soon see): they are also getting more cavalier with their innovation on secondary product lines. The only product line Apple absolutely can't fail at is the iPhone; whether you like it or not, they are the “iPhone company”, and if they have one misstep, they're doomed (the fact that they don't do like other companies and launch a metric ton of different models each year – and no, three new phones is not much – also raises the stakes much higher). But when it comes to accessories and the Mac, they don't really give a damn. I can picture this conversation going somewhere at Apple Park: “AirPower's reliability is unknown at this time? Screw it, it's just an accessory and it's cool so let's pre-announce it”. And maybe if Steve was still around, but definitely if the iPhone didn't even exist, you can bet those stupid butterfly keyboards would've been scrapped already.

The thing is: Apple is now so huge that a multi-million fiasco can feel like peanuts to them, and people will similarly either overlook it, or put up with it for a few years (I do believe they'll eventually fix the keyboard-gate, the flex-gate, etc). Back during Steve's days, not that long after the company had been on the brink of bankruptcy, any fiasco like that would've severely damaged the company's reputation. To this day, the “beleaguered” spectrum still prevails, albeit in a bit of a dissimulated fashion. Apple has always been a quirky company, and some people had wanted it to fail from its very inception, but the dark ages of the '90s provided them with the perfect fodder to peddle the “beleaguered” narrative and it sort of became a meme that was heavily circulated until a bit after Steve's passing. I predict it will take another decade until people and reporters get completely used to Apple being a successful company and stop predicting its demise at every juncture, much like they don't with the likes of Google, Microsoft, Samsung et al.

For me the funny thing is that Apple's "doom" already happened, just "not with a bang, but with a whimper".

Tim's Apple is not Steve's Apple.

I've slowly seen this company make decisions regarding their products that are in direct contravention to what attracted me to them in the first place:

Every version of iOS starting with 7
Yosemite
Killing off XServe
Killing off the 17-inch MBP
Killing off the cMBPs altogether (the last upgradeable Macs)
The first Retina MBPs (where they started soldering RAM to the logic board and making storage not upradeable, even if it was a removeable module)
The 2013 Mac Pro
The loss of the headphone jack
The continued use of Lightning (when USB-C is common)
Glue
USB-C only on ALL portables
Soldered SSDs
The TouchBar not being an optional thing over the row of tactile keys on higher MBPs
The single-port MacBook
Killing off MagSafe
Killing off the glowing logo (it was ALWAYS unecessary, but cool) on portables
The Notch
The PRICES (of RAM and Storage upgrades in particular)

and of course:

The maligned (or beloved, depending on your opinion) keyboards

Apple has transformed into an iOS-centric company, for better or worse. The Post-PC era is Tim Apple's era.

Thus, I've been called an Apple hater in these forums repeatedly, and after compiling the list above I realize they're right, although not in the irrational way they imply. The above ARE my reasons.

I LOVE Steve's Apple, and the products I still own are from that era. I'm a dinosaur.

But I realize that right now, today, Tim's Apple offers no device I'm willing to buy (at least not without having to put up with something I don't like) despite Apple having great tech: MacOS, Continuity, A-series chips, iPad Pro hardware, Mac mini, iOS's smoothness, the unmatched trackpads & multitouch support.

Yet, that doesn't mean I hope for (or expect) Apple's doom as a company.

It just means that I, me, have to accept that the reality that the Apple I loved may be gone, regardless of how much I hope for change to come.

But that's the thing about hope. It dies HARD. So here I am, along with a few other "haters":

TheIncredibles-3.jpg
 
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Zaap

macrumors 6502
Jul 6, 2009
386
32
Los Angeles, CA
This sounds insurmountable!

Cancel technology! Notches and 5400RPM drives for all!

Apple can go back to sleep for the next 3 to 4 years...
 
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