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The MacRumors Show: We're Finally Getting a Foldable iPhone

I love the idea of a Foldable, but I’m not sure about the execution.

From what I’ve seen so far, the Folds have tradeoffs I wouldn’t be able to accept, especially at their current price point.

My friend has the latest Pixel fold, and that crease looks (and feels) really bad.

IF Apple were to get it right, I can see myself buying one, as I would love to replace my iPad and phone with one device.
 
What people don’t realize is the iPhone 17 air is just 1/2 of the folding phone module. :rolleyes: 📱
 
If Apple can deliver a truly crease-free foldable iPhone, it will blow away anything Samsung can offer. Who want’s a bumpy ugly crease in the middle of their screen? Especially when spending $2,000 on a foldable smartphone.
 
If they do it right then Apple is the only company I'd ever consider buying a foldable from. The idea has always intrigued me but it's never been executed quite right and I'm not willing to switch to Android for it anyway.

But I'm still not convinced the idea in general is not anything more than a gimmick. It's a sub-par phone and a sub-par tablet. Hybrid anything always has to make a compromise. But if it's "good enough"...who knows.
 
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rchaser said:
Because those of us who have been around long enough remember what Apple used to be about and maybe were lamenting the slow regression to the mean of a once revolutionary company that had soul.

A/R-V/R headset and a foldable half a decade or more after those products have been on the market is so pathetic.

Apple needs a visionary, not a steward.
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You all are severely misunderstanding the future of AVP into a more mass produced, mainstream product. Reminds me of iPhone pundits back in the day.
 
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NeonNights said:
You're cheaping out on storage and relying on mobile hotspot to make your argument work. Do you also really carry around both your phone and iPad wherever you go? If so then you can't really just "hand the iPad to your kid" as you stated earlier unless your kid is also with you all the time. If your iPad needs to rely on your phone as a hotspot for prolonged use then you drain your phone battery faster and pretty soon the Internet access will die for both devices.

Be real. A foldable affords you the convenience of a phone and mini tablet in a compact form factor with full cellular access. A foldable can indeed be cheaper than two separate devices depending on storage and separate data plans. You can also get the new Fold7 with 512GB from Samsung or Amazon right now for $1600-1700 without any trade-ins.

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Ok get like 512 on iPhone 16 pro and then bring your iPad mini with you… no need of wifi since it’s for books mostly or things like that that you can download… and when I said kids well you can give him the ipad when they are with you… + yes I am mostly with my iPad even if it’s an iPad Air… And yes a mini fits in pockets (some)
 
I am an artist and the iPad is my main content creation tool, media consumption device & digital sketchbook. I have an iPad Pro and an iPad mini for when I really wanna travel light. It’s the perfect size digital sketchbook when on the go. I also have an iPhone 16 Pro Max. IF you’ll be able to use the Apple Pencil Pro on this new foldable iPhone & there are no crease issues… I would give strong consideration on combining my ipad mini & iphone into one device. But something tells me that Apple won’t allow the Apple Pencil Pro to work on the foldable iPhone. Or the drawing experience will be inferior if they do. We shall see. 🤔
 
klasma said:
That’s absolutely not the case. Look at the pictures in the thread I linked. Here is the mini, the (old 6.7”) Pro Max, and the Fold on top of each other:

View attachment 2529857

The Fold screen is only around 35% wider than the mini screen.


The numbers I cited were for the screen alone, without bezels, since for the Apple Fold we only have accurate numbers for the screen. The Pixel Fold screen is 2.65” wide. As I said, I would assume that the bezels on the Apple Fold will be thinner than those on the Pixel Fold, because the latter were really wide.
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That makes more sense with the number being the screen size alone.
 
Astuces iOS said:
If your total is 1948 then it’s less than 2k and you can take an iPhone 16 Pro no need for Pro Max… You can take also iPad mini 128gb… then you save a lot !
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I'm guessing the Apple Fold will start at 256GB, but time will tell. And, I would gladly pay the extra $52 to have two devices in one. I'm not the Pro type. I also bought the Pro Max when I bought iPhones. But, I understand what you are saying there.
 
Another great point that someone else made, that I wanted to reiterate it since I forgot you have to pay an additional fee for a data plan on a cellular iPad Mini, is that by having a two in one foldable, you no longer have to pay extra for a data plan, for whenever you use the mini tablet when the phone is unfolded. I get that foldables aren't for everyone, but if Apple makes a great foldable (if you absolutely have to have an Apple version) you'd be foolish to continue carrying around an iPhone and an iPad Mini separately, in most scenarios anyway. Especially since you are paying extra every month/year for the data plan for the Mini.
 
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I'm excited about this. I have been disappointed with every single foldable phone I've seen because of the awful seem. If Apple truly figured out how to eliminate it by 99%, I'm in.
 
I am not nearly as interested in a folding phone as I am a phone that will accurately write what I say so that I can use it with my voice. Apple needs to seriously work on and fix dictation. It is the user interface I use the most.
 
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StevieD100 said:
Yawn. This is a 'do not buy' even at $200.00.
Is there really a demand for this 'thing' once the Fanbois have been sold their new iThing?
I've yet to see a Samsung foldable in the wild so my guess is not yet.
Then with the economy about to crash who exactly will have the money to spend on this?
Not me that's for sure.
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I can't imagine a pressing need for the folding phone. Also, why stop at just one foldable panel? Add three folding panels and you could have a big iPad in your pocket. And each of those panels could have additional foldout panels...
 
kcwookie said:
I am not nearly as interested in a folding phone as I am a phone that will accurately write what I say so that I can use it with my voice. Apple needs to seriously work on and fix dictation. It is the user interface I use the most.
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Better voice quality would be cool too. They can do it, but they are cheap assed with bandwidth.
 
What are us poor early adopters going to do when we have to choose between a new iPhone Pro Max, an iPhone Air, an iPhone Fold and a 20th Anniversary iPhone all being released in the same time frame?
 
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nkgmd said:
What are us poor early adopters going to do when we have to choose between a new iPhone Pro Max, an iPhone Air, an iPhone Fold and a 20th Anniversary iPhone all being released in the same time frame?
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Gotta catch 'em all!
 
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iMac The Knife said:
Another great point that someone else made, that I wanted to reiterate it since I forgot you have to pay an additional fee for a data plan on a cellular iPad Mini, is that by having a two in one foldable, you no longer have to pay extra for a data plan, for whenever you use the mini tablet when the phone is unfolded.
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That's true, though you can always use your iPhone as a hotspot for your iPad.
 
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MuonJuggler said:
I can't imagine a pressing need for the folding phone. Also, why stop at just one foldable panel? Add three folding panels and you could have a big iPad in your pocket. And each of those panels could have additional foldout panels...
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Also some fold-out solar panels.
 
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This foldable thing seems to me more of an exercise of treading water and generating profit while somewhere there is technology that is far more advanced but for whatever reason not being released yet. This kind of shallow incrementalism is excruciatingly dissatisfying. I could be totally wrong but right now I would think the next breakthrough in communications & data technology would probably come from Tesla or Microsoft and involve some type of incredible "quantum computing" efficiency or breakthrough application use cases. But what do I know? We'll see 🫩
 
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It seems to me the market for this thing is achingly small.

ie. people who currently feel the need to carry around an iphone AND an ipad mini and are happy to pay for something which costs more than both of them combined (and probably doesn't perform either role quite as well).

I'm with those who feel the loss of a truly innovative and exciting technology company, rather than just another one which simply tries desperately to keep on top of 'consumer demand' and maximise their bottom line.
 
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