When a mobile device manufacturer (samsung, hauwei, now apple) makes a foldable, I get the impression they're running out of ideas with the "slate" form factor and are trying to stimulate sales.
Personally, I would want that R&D spend and innovation to go to more sustainable materials, longer lasting devices, and easily repairable parts to extend the devices useful life.
Apple's annual gross profit was $195B last year against an R&D budget of around $35B. So, they've got more than enough spare change to throw around. I'm sure whatever they're spending on foldables isn't impairing them financially in any way.
I'm more concerned for what it means for focus, fragmented ecosystems, user experience, etc.
From Jobs: "People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of many of the things we haven't done as the things we have done."
The market && apple's choice of either pricing it aggressively or pricing it so that nobody can afford it. Both have equal weighting here.
The Z fold has succeeded enough that I see it out and about even outside tech-circles. Oppo and Google have had multiple generations of well-recieved folables too, despite not nearly having the marketing machine of someone like Apple.
Some folks just have to complain for the sake of complaining, must give them a little dopamine hit or something.
It should be obvious to anyone who cares about phone hardware even a little that older foldables won't be the end-all of how thin the packaging is ever going to get.
The assumption that even future foldables will feel like holding two typical 7-8mm phones together is just an obivous case of no research and stereotypical hn complaining.
That’s what jayd16 did, and then you rolled in with nothing except a complaint about people who complain, which is pretty rich.
> more sustainable materials, longer lasting devices, and easily repairable parts to extend the devices useful life
What they are doing, like all for-profit companies, is focusing on profits, for better or worse.
What you are suggesting (and what I'd like to) directly works against the goal of making more profits, literally all of those things will lead to less income for them.
I also want those things, but realistically, because of the economic systems we have, those things will never be the focus, because the market doesn't reward those things, and doesn't seem likely that'll change either.
I don't know what the solution is either, status quo simply sucks, with no escape in sight. Seems to be getting worse in fact.
> I get the impression they're running out of ideas with the "slate" form factor and are trying to stimulate sales.
I think we've just reached the local maximum of the phone design and adding folding gives two different branches to go down: 1) same size screen unfolded but smaller folded size or 2) folded with an external screen roughly the same size as a normal phone today but it expands to a much larger one unfolded. We'd kind of reached the peak size that people can reasonably pocket so option 2 allows for even bigger screens for people willing to pay without having to have a second device (something like a tablet).
The folds do add functionality and I think there's an impulse that leads people to say they don't see the point of something just because they're not interested in it personally.
the vast majority of companies only make solid near-glued together phones, so that is all anyone buys.
if apple made a phone with replaceable batteries with a bit more thickness and some compromises on water resistance vs. cost, you'd actually see the consumer preferences play out.
> The folds do add functionality and I think there's an impulse that leads people to say they don't see the point of something just because they're not interested in it personally.
you're going to have to go through some real mental contortions to support foldable phones as consumer choice while treating repairability/replaceability as inherently not worth it because you like slim designs.
Seems like they are going to have to make that compromise, at least in the EU market. User-replaceable batteries from 2027 onwards, unless they are willing to quit the market (probably still requiring screwdrivers, but hey, its something)
A lot of phones these days are at least IP67 if not better. My Pixel 8 is IP68 so it comes down to the battery capacity retention and how well they can game that measurement (slower charging etc for the measurement) but most phones are pretty good at that afaik.
I haven't encountered any issues with apps not supporting the wider aspect ratio. It's one of those cases in which Android's up-front investment in more flexible software paid off. Android apps were harder to write up front because they had to support resizable layouts from the get go, but by the time stuff like foldables were introduced the software library was already ready for it all.
For me the ability to read on a bigger screen is the selling point. I flip it open to read things all the time. Feels like a small book.
Personally, I think it's nice that companies make products that appeal to different kinds of people.
I don't care that it is a few mm thicker than other phones when it's in my pocket. It's so much better than a regular phone for everything from reading books to writing email to watching YouTube, and it's also a slightly thicker regular phone. It also has a pretty good UI for moving apps to side-by-side mode, which I use so often that I'm 100% sure I will never go back to a regular phone.
Consider how much money they put in to building a car to cancel it when they decided they couldn't, in fact, do it better. I'm sure there are hundreds - maybe thousands - of failed prototypes along the way.
There's a reason the Asus Duo is so much cheaper than the ThinkPad Fold X1 and all other OLED "folding" screen devices.
Glued batteries, soldered storage, keyboards and screens that absolutely aren't designed to be swapped out in the event of damage. There's still an element of planned obsolescence even if reliability/quality generally seems better than the competition.
Straight junk, forced onto all of their laptop buyers for multiple model-year updates.
Sure, they have a reputation for quality today (in general), but that wasn't even a decade ago and you've already forgot. Classic apple discourse.
I'm sure you're not referring to the flaky accessory company.
Have you never used their cables? I don't think I've seen a single Apple cable lasting more than a few years if they're being used daily, the only ones that last are the ones that are kept static for the entire time.
Their computing hardware is great otherwise, no disagreement there. But their cables are the polar-opposite of whatever engineering methodologies they use for their computing hardware.
I'm not sure if the newer braided cables are better or not as they don't have them.
I have never needed to replace mine as when the phone is plugged in and charging I don't use it.
Failure at a mission statement does not mean you have a different mission statement.
I don’t think I’ve ever had an Apple cable fail, all the way back to the 30 pin.
Does the broad market care about sustainable materials? What does that even mean? Almost no one buys something because of sustainable.
For longer lasting devices, people like buying new phones. The iPhone has pretty much not changed in the last 5 years. People just like buying the new and best
Same thing w/ repairable parts. People just like buying new things. And it's not a conspiracy theory, it's just observed behavior.
So I'm glad they're trying something, because as much as you would like these other things, the broader market of consumers don't care. Yes profits are a useful proxy for value people place on your activities. Not perfect but in the long run if you provide a shitty experience you're likely to lose.
The thinness and low weight of the Air is also great though. I hope that Google makes a Pixel like that, so that I can have a phone with GrapheneOS that is this thin/light.
iPhone useful life is already pretty great. I'm using one regularly from 2020 (as a work device) - better than any laptop I've ever owned including classic-era Thinkpads have lasted as a daily driver.
Considering how many people are dailying >6.8 inch phones (already massive in the average sized pocket), complaining about a thickness of 11mm* is just small brain behavior. I guarantee the weight is what you're noticing more than the thickness.
As someone who's into foldables but doesn't use one, the benefits are very real, especially if you read a lot of articles/blogs. Only reason I'm not using one is I can't afford the ones I want. How is a smaller phone, that's ideal for 1-handed use while having an expansive screen available at any moment, "running out of ideas"??? I like large screens, and I like being able to fit it in a small chassis. That's all it is.
* Samsung, Oppo, and Google's currently available foldables are all under 11mm
And in that case, a folding phone is huge! Having played with one that my parent use, it's such an upgrade for reading/scrolling experience. When we all are spending so much time on the phone (that's a separate discussion, but it is the reality).
Where apple has a significant opportunity here is the software side though. Google unfortunately doesn't seem to be too interested in exploring UI concepts with the Fold, leaving that to OnePlus and Samsung, both of which have imo better multitasking experiences than the Pixel Fold. Apple making an iPhone that becomes an iPad would probably be enough for them to win significant marketshare, but I hope they use this opportunity to do some interesting things with UI beyond what the iPad can do.
>I do not use a case
I have a Pixel 8a, and I have to use a case for it, because it appears to be designed to be as slippery as possible. Every edge is round and there's nothing to grip - it feels like an aluminium/glass bar of wet soap.
The 10 feels like it should be more slippery, but for some reason, it isn't. It stays stuck in your hand like glue, despite the back feeling like another glass screen. Something special in is coating
"Samsung has this cool foldable phone—they seem to be taking the design mantle away from Apple these days."
"I hear this VR thing is the future of computing. Why isn't Apple in this space?"
I suspect even in the Jobs-era you might point to the iPad as Apple being pressured into responding with a product in the tablet space.
The Apple Watch a reaction to the Pebble?
So by not attempting to enter market niches, they could be potentially leaving a lot of money on the table, while the downside of the product failing to get traction doesn't really kill them.
My non-techie parents pretty much always get the latest non-Pro iPhone every couple years because their carrier calls them and practically begs them to take a new phone.
It's extremely rare to see anyone with a phone older than like 4 years.
The cost of the iPad Mini + my phone was like $600 and the folds - even the 6th gen and above - are super unreliable, so right now that seems like the best play.
It's really nice to have a tablet always with you. I live in a warm country so I don't usually wear a coat or a big bag.
Also, on android there's really no good small tablets. They're all 10" and bigger.
For you maybe, but for most it is, or we'd all be doing it.
Personally, as someone being used to the Motorola Razor foldable, which happened to present back then. It was really good and cool as well. I hated the ever smaller getting Ericson smartphones.
I am looking forward to Apple's copy of Samsungs foldable smartphones. After all, I don't want to carry an iPhone as well as an iPad mini around with me.
And I see the foldable more as a replacement for the iPhone ultra max phones. No matter how large the screensize they have, they never beat the iPad mini on readability, even being stuck with the old one for many years.
I did this way back when the first iPad mini was released, and it's not bad.
But these days, the big iPhone is 7 inches to the iPad mini's 8 inches... the phone is big enough for most iPad mini use cases
Both a phone and a tablet can come with WhatsApp, it's a user choice whether they are there and the frequency of checking them. Global muting the apps is also an option.
I understand your point, but it is a point mitigated by user intervention. Now, if we want to say reading on a bigger screen than a phone is a better user experience, I'm on board with that.
A big thing about the form factor is the perception. If you are in a meeting and pull out a full size iPad or your laptop to look something up, it certainly feels different than using your mini. Same at a restaurant.
At the park with the dog I can carry it like a paperback, sit on the grass and read. It's perfect for everything except phone calls.
Eh, iOS has profiles that let you disable whatever apps you wish to. Better than a whole other piece of hardware, IMO
Last night I opened it to find the inside screen having dead pixels in the center by the bend.
I love foldable phones. I use it all the time in both modes, but now I'm currently procrastinating looking up my best buy warranty plan specifics.
For a small percentage of mobile superusers, I really do believe foldables are the future. Having the ability to use desktop mode by default, or multitask, is huge.
This is right, of course, and pretty obvious I think. But a part of me also thinks that we're still not good at it (or are not good at it anymore). At the very least, the tradeoff is a huge increase in UI complexity. It was so, so easy to design UIs with Hypercard when you knew it was going to run on a 512×342 display.
We know Apple is bringing a folding iPhone through manufacturing leaks. A desktop mode is less likely to be leaked, since it would be mostly software and (a lot) less reliant on third parties.
This needs to come to ALL iPhones. You plug in a usb c cable to your monitor and bang, iPad Neo.
But Apple being Apple will software block it...
> A third discovery was arguably more specific: a new system key that returns the total count of *built-in* displays on a device
(emphasis added)
Though, I have yet to find myself in a situation that I wanted to use an iPad and I was not already in a position to be carrying one. I use mine for work and I am already carrying a laptop, throwing in an iPad is a very small addition to my bag.
Any time I have just been out, was never a situation I felt like I needed something like an iPad. Throw in that this looks like it will be the size of a Mini vs the 13" pro that I use now, it puts it in an awkward position. And I could justify the rumored $2k cost to replace 2 devices that cost more than that combined.
It will be interesting to see how it does in practice, but also what it does to the separation of iOS and iPadOS.
I'll guess it won't be a Vision Pro level disaster, but most people will skip this device unless the price drops substantially.
(If those under 17 got attached to foldables, it would be an enduring franchise.)
For those of us in between, I'd love it if my foldable when unfolded were finally the OS of choice - iPadOS or iOS or even macOS. It would be the hub for hub-and-spoke devices...
It's an impossible ask, but perhaps....
My guess is one of two ways. Not address it at all. Or tell you that you don't see what you really see.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/i-tried-oppos-latest-foldable-pho...
What company has ever highlighted the crease in their foldable for any reason other than to say it's improved from the previous year?
I wouldn’t be surprised at all if next year they dissolve the iPhone/iPad distinction on the App Store altogether and maybe even remove the Catalyst toggle on the Mac App Store. If you make an iOS app, it’s also a full fledged iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS app too.
I certainly wouldn’t mind. On my Mac there are some needlessly heavy electron apps I’d swap out for their iOS counterparts in a heartbeat if that were possible, as well as some games that would run fine on macOS but their devs don’t tick the checkbox for unclear reasons.
I hadn't thought about it but it makes sense and it makes me wonder how far this would reach throughout the rest of the OS. If the iPhone can fold out into an iPad Mini, will it get the rest of the iPadOS features? The iPad used to run iOS but they rebranded the version that runs on iPad to iPadOS to distinguish that it has a handful of unique features only for big screens, mainly pertaining to multitasking. But if the line is being blurred and iPhones will have big screens with multitasking, will they go back to just calling it iOS on all mobile devices?
I usually am a pro Apple consumer but how many high end users actually want this form factor?
Do you remember the Microsoft prototype for a folding tablet? It would have two different apps running, and you could use the spine to pull data between them, a kind of visual clipboard.
I don't think that workflow is as important now, but having two apps open (one on each side of a device) is going to be killer, and it's something they're clearly hinting at with some of their asks for developers (and with their iPad OS).
its both iphone mini (yay!! mini iphone again) and ipad mini (yay!! hueg screen for bedtime youtube) in one device presumably with a cpu powerful enough to run cyberpunk 2077. what a world :)
This is the only phone I've seen people move away from iPhone to get, I know at least 3 women who switched from iPhone to android to get the folding clamshell Samsung and all love it.
I mention RAM as Android with 4GB of ram is almost unusable.
12GB seems to get up into $200+, and that's still a lot of "renewed" listings.
You can find quirky little loss-leader deals here and there sometimes but I don't think you're getting 12GB of RAM for $80 on a routine basis.
https://hackaday.com/2026/05/26/linux-on-android-provides-in...
But yeah they're usually carrier locked, I personally use Verizon prepaid and my 8GB Motorola phone is above $80 but not $600 either, it's $200
https://www.verizon.com/smartphones/motorola-moto-g-power-20...
Anyway it's certainly not the same phone as a flagship folding phone but for daily everyday needs more than adequate, I even was able to run multiple gig apps eg. DoorDash/Uber Eats on the 8GB model.
I will say what people consider "worth the money" varies since I bought a $1,000.00 radar detector and it's like who buys that...
Might be ram boost that's bumping from 8 to 12GB
I remember so many Apple developers saying this was why Apple was better than Android. The HN archives are full of such comments.
Not that I care for either company, as they both lord over our lives and limit our freedoms.
Maybe like
WWDC 2026: Platform sample app hints at future foldable
Apple is great at winning capitalism.
Forget before Apple Silicon, who's making an equivalent laptop now?
Exactly, they deliver products that are better than their competition and thanks to that they got extremely rich. It's a great example of capitalism working as intended.
From what I have seen of folding screens today, they come with some significant trade offs (creases, wear, etc). Over time, I expect these to be solved, but I don't think folding screens are a luxury item today as much as they are a tech novelty. But, the cell phone market has kind of stagnated in terms of hardware, and it looks like folding screens might be the thing to drive some upgrade purchases. During the peak iphone growth phase I believe Apple would have labelled these screens as not ready yet, but today I think they risk losing market share and are potentially somewhat forced to build a folding iphone.
Same regarding your comment... I agree, the minimum QC does feel like it notched back a bit.
Even the Jobs Reality Distortion Field couldn't alter physics.