Well that's not my problem.
You're one sale ain't gonna help Samsung's flop.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Samsung Unveils New Foldable Smartphones, Galaxy Buds 2, and Galaxy Watch 4
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Seems pretty obvious: A phone that easily transforms into a small tablet and a phone that folds in half for easier portability. May not be for you or me, but it doesn't take much imagination to understand how there's a demand for such products.
Sales are a reflection of marketing, that’s about it. Lots of times worse products are more successful, and the network effect is strong to make it impossible to catch up.
if that were the case Samsung flagships phones would sell amazing. They spend millions on marketing.
Apple products are successful due to amount of people which love IOS and how it runs over a long period of time and how it works together with other devices and services.
user experience will always top specs for most people
Neither you nor I know anything like that for the future, but only 1 of us is worried about it now, apparently. I'll worry about what's available when I want to replace my Z Flip.
I'm not worried about anything. Seems to be that you are in fact. 😂. I don't care about this product. You keep quoting my posts trying to "straighten me out". That's all you've been doing today. You reached out to me initially today and you can't seem to stop. 😂. This is a loser product from Samsung. Plain and simple. If it weren't you'd be confident enough not to have to attack my posts about it or say anything at all. Afterall I stopped posting about this 2 days ago. LOL.Neither you nor I know anything like that for the future, but only 1 of us is worried about it now, apparently. I'll worry about what's available when I want to replace my Z Flip.
I would recommend hanging out on the Samsung forums if you're looking to celebrate this product. Even there you'll no doubt see plenty of criticism about it. There certainly is a lot of criticism about it on YouTube. I'm putting a nail in this. This news came out 2 days ago and I was done with it on that day. It seems to bother you that people don't agree with you about this nonsense of a product from Samsung. I can't help you about that. Please find someone else to talk to that shares your views about this? I'm done here.
I see the galaxy fold as more of a tablet that you need to unfold in order to use.
Yes, I could choose to use the fold in candy bar phone mode, but then the tall and narrow form factor makes it awkward. Or I could unfold it for a larger display, and that to me is where the problems start.
Think about how you use your smartphone. Think about how many times you take it out of your pocket, use it for a short period of time, then put it back in. Rinse and repeat throughout the day. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that having to unfold, then fold your phone every time you do this gets annoying and cumbersome very quickly.
One poster above was raving about the technology that went into the galaxy fold and how the iphone was clearly behind. Which brings me back to my original point. Technology is the means, user experience is the end. All this folding screen and hidden camera tech isn’t coming together to create an experience that users want. It’s just giving them more issues that they need to contend with.
I am sure there are people whose lifestyles suit these devices, but I am of the opinion that the majority of users are still better with a conventional smartphone form factor. Use the money and get an iPhone 12 and iPad mini instead. I think they will get mileage out of this.
Hey, I'm not switching from iPhone anytime soon. My point was there are PLENTY of people who will go for these. It's not hard to see the attraction, even if you and I aren't convinced enough to go for it.
And my point is that the number of people who have need for a folding tablet is likely still in the overwhelming minority, given the tradeoff it entails.
If you'll go back and look at my original comment, I was replying to someone who said he didn't get the desire for these phones. I think it's pretty obvious why people want them. I don't care what percentage of the market that is - it's still pretty apparent they appeal to enough people for a company to put all this research and development into them.
I would beg to differ.
Samsung's folding screen tech has been stolen and sold to China
Samsung's latest bendable screen technology has been stolen and sold to two Chinese companies, according to prosecutors in South Korea.
It would seem that Samsung had been researching flexible displays from as early as 2012 or 2013. I suspect this may be a scenario where Samsung R&D came up with the technology first, and now Samsung is trying to create a use case for it in the form of folding phones.
This may suggest that Samsung is pushing folding phones like no tomorrow not necessarily because they believe such a concept makes sense for users, but because they have already sunk all this money in developing said screen technology, and now feel pressured to recoup that R&D money back in some way (both in the way of selling phones, and from selling the folding screen tech to other companies looking to hop on this bandwagon). It also gives them an extra marketing point over Apple by positioning Samsung as innovators.
This is the complete opposite of what a company like Apple would do, where they first decide on the experience they would like users to have, then work backwards from there to try and piece together this experience using existing tech.
I do feel that there is a market and a use case for flexible screens, but that this technology makes more sense on wearables like smart glasses where your display is not necessarily flat or straight. Not so much smartphones where the durability of the screen remains a major concern.
I just feel that Samsung is going about this all wrong.
Again, why would they go through all of that research and development if they didn't believe the demand would be there? It would be a total waste fo time to develop something for so long that hardly anyone would want.
It's sort of like when the MagSafe battery came out, and on MacRumors, people were saying it was stupid and overpriced and who would buy this . . . as people were literally posting screenshots of their orders 🤣
I think we too often project our own thinking onto everyone else, because of course we are the center of the universe and most people think exactly like us, right? LOL!
You're right, it could just be a marketing push to pay for old research. But even so, I actually like the fold and flip design, and I just ordered my second version and I'm sure I'll like it even better. What the future brings I can't know for sure, but plastic based flexible OLED is coming out in far more than just foldable phones, and the tech will be here for a long time to come. (until something better comes along!)I would beg to differ.
Samsung's folding screen tech has been stolen and sold to China
Samsung's latest bendable screen technology has been stolen and sold to two Chinese companies, according to prosecutors in South Korea.edition.cnn.com
It would seem that Samsung had been researching flexible displays from as early as 2012 or 2013. I suspect this may be a scenario where Samsung R&D came up with the technology first, and now Samsung is trying to create a use case for it in the form of folding phones.
This may suggest that Samsung is pushing folding phones like no tomorrow not necessarily because they believe such a concept makes sense for users, but because they have already sunk all this money in developing said screen technology, and now feel pressured to recoup that R&D money back in some way (both in the way of selling phones, and from selling the folding screen tech to other companies looking to hop on this bandwagon). It also gives them an extra marketing point over Apple by positioning Samsung as innovators.
This is the complete opposite of what a company like Apple would do, where they first decide on the experience they would like users to have, then work backwards from there to try and piece together this experience using existing tech.
I do feel that there is a market and a use case for flexible screens, but that this technology makes more sense on wearables like smart glasses where your display is not necessarily flat or straight. Not so much smartphones where the durability of the screen remains a major concern.
I just feel that Samsung is going about this all wrong.
Just google flexible OLED!
Comparing two different brand makers of the SAME product is very poor point to make. Besides, MP3 players were going to die anyway; including the iPod. M3gatron clearly said, "over 2.5 million second gen foldables shipped by Samsung" in less than 1 year, not the two year time frame that you are using with the sales comparison of Zunes. What about the first gen? And what about the numbers for the Z flip? Does your disingenuous assumption that no one wants foldables include numbers from other foldable makers like Huawei, Xiaomi, Motorola etc? Your argument about "profit" is definitely another poor example. Demand is key when it comes to new products on the market, not profit. When you crow about profits, it only signifies that you are content with paying more for less or basically the same, such as a slabbed notch for the past four years. When apple comes out with their foldable there will be many that shell out what I assume will be highest price point on the foldable market: https://www.macrumors.com/2020/09/10/apple-orders-samsung-foldable-display-samples/
And?
Whats that got to do with Samsungs awful UI design and using plastic backs on $800 phones? Sorry, did you buy a Samsung and feel silly for buying an inferior product?
True. Samsung will also have issues competing in western markets being an Asian based company.
A company can be good in some areas and not as good in others.
Highly unlikely.
Honestly your supposition doesn't even make a lot of sense, the technology would have been developed by Samsung Display(which is only part of Samsung Electronics) and in order to capitalize on it they could just sell flexible/bendable displays, it wouldn't make sense to monumentally increase the spending and effort to create a new category of products if they don't believe in their own technology and products. I don't think they could have reached the level where they are now with the Fold 3 if they only made it "because they invested a lot of money in flexible displays 10 years ago".
Now this is funny, you believe Samsung makes foldable phones to gain extra marketing points against Apple. 🤣
This also doesn't make a lot of sense. You can't just think about the experience first without taking in consideration the hardware because once you move past the "experience" and look at the hardware possibilities you will have to alter that "experience" so you are just wasting time with such a strategy.
I strongly disagree, Samsung is on the right track with foldable phones.
Smart glasses? that sounds totally uninteresting. Anyway taking in consideration your unfounded concerns with the durability of the screen when it comes to foldable smartphones wouldn't smart glasses or smartwatches be even more fragile? At least in folded mode the screen of the smartphone is protected.
Last edited:
To be able to sell flexible displays, there needs to first be a market for flexible displays.
Why else do you think Samsung is pushing this tech so hard? If not for folding phones, who would even buy such technology, and for what purpose exactly?
Which is why some Apple products take so long to come out, or come with controversial tradeoffs. Either because the tech isn't ready, and / or it takes time to come out with a custom solution in the absence of said tech, or Apple is willing to compromise in numerous other areas just to enable that one "killer experience".
The reason why Apple has not made made a smartphone with a hardware keyboard, a netbook, a circular smartwatch, or a foldable phone, and instead created the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, AirPods, and is now working of Glasses, is design, with Apple designers calling the shots, and searching for and having technology made to serve the product experience, and not engineers excited about about new hot tech and trying to turn it into a product.
I initially had the same reaction as you when I learnt about Apple's design led process, but over time, I have come to appreciate how it allows Apple to set itself apart from the competition, and why their products sometimes come with head-scratching and seemingly baffling design choices.
From what I am observing, Apple is leveraging on their strong iPhone install base to launch their wearables platform (Apple Watch, AirPods, rumoured Apple Glasses).
Samsung either doesn't think that wearables is an avenue worth pursuing, or they realise that they have no hope of catching up to Apple in this regard and so have chosen to double down on smartphones.
We will just have to wait and see.
There already is a market for flexible displays, there's no need for Samsung to invest incredible amounts of resources in developing foldable smartphones.
Because they have a competitive advantage which they intend to keep and it's obvious foldable smartphones have a future so they are also trying to make foldable screen mainstream.
The same excuses again and again. The fact that Apple doesn't have an impeccable track record when it comes to launching new products shows that you are not exactly accurate with these assumptions. The original iphone did just that, compromise in numerous areas just to enable that one "killer experience": a big touch sensitive screen.
Any company can wait and see what competitors are doing and just take their time in finding ways to improve certain technologies. Apple just has a low risk strategy and very slow to incorporate proven technologies in their products, not to mention launching new products in a new category, they are very slow at that. The idea is that any company can move slow, there's nothing laudable about such a strategy.
This is an odd thing to say because it's not like the original iphone didn't have a lot of compromises and the hardware keyboard definitely wasn't one of them. The fact that it didn't have 3G was way more important.
But what do I know, maybe 3G still wasn't ready 5 years after it's launch.
I mean it's not like you work for Apple and you actually know the reasons behind their strategies. Maybe it's not because of what you imagine.
Or maybe Samsung has other ideas and they don't feel like they need to "leverage" their user base for every single new product they want to launch or design, especially products that have nothing to do with wearables. Although even with Apple and their users base, you can really say things like AppleTV(TV+) and HomePod were successful so leveraging their user base didn't work like a charm every time.
As for catching up to apple, the hardware of Samsung's wearables is very competitive so I don't see how they are giving up on anything. Designing foldable smartphones definitely doesn't imply such a thing.
If their UI is awful, so is everyone else. No one has had a problem with plastic backs. Premium phones run upwards of one grand now. Samsung has sold plastic back phones in the billions. Putting what you consider as "high class" material on a phone doesn't make it perform better. We get it, Samsung could make a phone made of silk and diamonds and you'd still scoff at it because you have such love for one brand and disdain for the other.
Last edited:
Can I just point out that I really want a smartphone like they had in Westworld. Triple fold out to iPad mini would be sick.