Either so many companies with their extensive customer outreach and market research, and the need for solid justification of potential returns from a new technology to justify the substantial R&D outlay are simultaneously wrong, or you are. I wonder which is more likely?
It's more likely that the companies are wrong.
Even with decades of experience building products and integrating hardware, software, and services, you still have people who decide to make a smartphone with a hardware keyboard, netbook, circular smartwatch, or a foldable phone. The reason why Apple has not made any of these, and instead created iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, AirPods, and is now working of Glasses, is design.
Design is the magic ingredient, with Apple designers calling the shots, and searching for and having technology made to serve the product experience, not engineers excited about new hot tech and trying to turn it into a product. Apple Glasses vs. foldable phones is the latest example of Apple's design culture leading to an entirely different product than what engineering-led companies are doing.
My takeaway - these companies are unsure of what the next big thing is. As a result, we see Samsung position rethinking the smartphone as a top priority because really, what other option is there? Throw in a piece of tech they have been experimenting with for years (flexible displays) and likely have spent a handsome sum on R&D, which Samsung is probably desperate to recoup, and the temptation is simply too much to resist.
I am still trying to wrap my head around the Z Flip. What is the Z Flip’s value proposition even? Being able to prop up a smartphone camera on a table for long-distance self-portraits? Since being closed is the Z Flip's default position, the user ends up looking at pretty much everything but the screen. The tiny front-facing window for notifications is a joke. If someone wants a convenient screen for notifications, a smartwatch is the better option in every way.
This is where Apple and Samsung's long-term product strategies could not be more different. Apple is going all-in on wearables (to the point of being willing to neglect their Mac lineup). Samsung knows they have little chance of succeeding with wearables, and have thus chosen to double down on the smartphone.
Some will argue that folding phones and wearables are not mutually exclusive, that Apple could do a folding iPhone in addition to the Apple Watch, AirPods and even Apple glasses. I am increasingly of the opinion that they are, in that a successful wearable platform will make the need for folding phones largely irrelevant.
I predict that the way Samsung has been dragging its feet with smartwatches is a strategic blunder that the company will pay for over the next decade, though it may not be a matter that Samsung has much control over.
