Report: Apple is testing foldable iPhones, having the same problems as everyone else::Don’t expect these clamshell-style foldables in 2024 or 2025 or maybe ever.
Apple already made a folding phone. It was called the iphone 6.
Why don’t we get back to smaller smartphones like a decadr ago?
Same reason you can’t buy a new small pickup truck. They don’t make them because the mass market isn’t there
Cmon! If I promise to put truck nuts on it and drive aggressively will you let me get the small one?
Sorry, it’s not burning through enough diesel
They also can’t charge $70k for one, even though it only cost $200 more to produce than the $18k striped compact truck.
Because they don’t sell.
If you ignore screen size (which people erroneously use as a metric for phone size, since it’s an easily findable and easy to understand number) and instead look at actual phone dimensions, most phones now aren’t actually dissimilar. Bezels have shrunk a lot.
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Galaxy S24, Jan 2024: 147mm x 70.6mm
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Galaxy S5, Feb 2014: 142mm x 72.5mm
S24 frontal area = 10,378mm²
S5 frontal area = 10,153mm²
The S24 is only 2% larger than its decade-old equivalent. Not something you’d even notice.
If you include the thickness of the device, then the S24 is actually 4% smaller than its decade old equivalent.
Now sure, there were smaller phones, especially if you go further back, like an iPhone 3G genuinely would be considered tiny now.
It’s just worth noting that phones aren’t actually growing each year anymore like people say they are, and they haven’t for a while. Bezels shrinking is a huge change in design for TVs, monitors, laptops, phones.
People are just hearing things like “6.3 inch screen” and they think “wow, my old phone only had a 4.5 inch screen. This phone must be so much larger!”
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I would really like to upgrade my 12 mini to an newer Mini model if they ever made one!
I have an iphone mini… you need smaller than that? Why? It’s pretty darn small already.
They quit Mini business at iPhone 13.
Ahh that sucks. Probably not enough people bought them then.
I also have one, and it’s a damn shame that Apple stopped the mini series after the 13. I don’t need half a tablet in my pocket, I need something that easily fits in my pocket and can take halfway decent pictures. I’m not sure that my next phone will be an iPhone because of this, and I’ve exclusively used iPhones since the 4S.
Well we’ll just have to wait and see. They stopped making the mini ipads for several years, then brought them back in 2020, so anything’s possible.
I personally don’t care I don’t want a foldable phone ( my last job gave me a Flip 3 and it was a terrible experience) I’d rather phone with a removable battery than with a foldable screen.
I can’t speak for the flip, but the fold 4 is fantastic. I can’t imagine going back to a slab
Same here. I absolutely love mine. Zero issues more than a year in.
Typing this on a fold4 would just like to chime in that after a year of ownership the inner screen did fail seemingly for no reason. I was able to get this fixed but I just want to stress they do have some problems.
Partner has gone through 3 flip4 in the same amount of time though that phone is garbage.
Man, that sucks! I know I had read about screen issues on the 3 and to expect them on the 4, but none here. Sorry you both had issues! One day they’ll be perfect. I hope.
The screen protector on my inner screen peeled off after a year but it still works fine.
I actually can attest that it’s built pretty rugged, having fumbled the quickdraw back pocket grab last weekend and flung/dropped it from waist height onto a concrete garage floor. Zero damage, though it took the hit on the bottom hinge corner, so: metal.
I’m still impressed…
Removable batteries for sure, but I spent 20 years waiting for the clamshell design to make a comeback and I love my Flip (4). Phones need to fit in pockets and have a decent sized screen.
Doubt it will ever get back to how it was with how easily they could be removed but there may be steps towards it https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/06/22/new-eu-law-to-force-smartphone-makers-to-build-easily-replaceable-batteries
You can replace the battery easily on fairphone 5
I would love a foldable phone if the other half you have a good hardware keyboard on it.
I’d rather have a unfoldable phone and a tablet than a foldable, which is literally just the worst of both worlds.
My pixel fold has been great ha
My S23 Ultra/Tab S5e has as well
My Samsung Z Fold 5 has been awesome as well. Im too lazy to go grab a tablet, id rather always have a decent sized screen with me
It’s why I think metrics on these arent going to ever be accurate. No I’m not using tablet mode all the time. That’s not why I bought it. It’s to have a tablet when I need it. People tend to judge it as if it’s not good if I’m not using both screens 100% of the time.
I can’t wait for Apple to announce in a key note they’ve revolutionised the phone market again with the world’s first folding phone.
Those apple boys are so talented 😊.
Did you say folding phone? Ew
I think you’ll find it’s the new iPhone 17 with dynamic flex technology and that Tim Cook will repeatedly say on stage that this has “never been done before”.
But what apple specific non standard proprietary shit will they implement that you will have to buy from them for 10 times the price that competitors offer the equivalent. This is the interesting question.
This is no ordinary folding phone my friend. Behold ‘The HiNGE’!
Leveraging our proprietary ROTATION™ technology
The case for one - do you want a case without Dynamic Flex ©®™ compatibility like some commoner?
I would have previous said a folding lightning cable connector, but the EU have saved me the bother.
They actually was first with folding smartphone though, remember iPhone 6 bending drama
It would be the height of stupidity to copy the bending screen fad. It would also cannibalise sales on their product lines.
Me too, because in spite of marketing garbage the product will probably be best in class or at least providing competition thereof.
Did anyone ask for folding phones?
For the love of god, yes. About half the time, I want a phone. The other I want a tablet. A foldable phone similar to the galaxy fold is exactly what I want.
But I’m locked into the Apple ecosystem for multiple reasons. And no, “just get two devices” isn’t that great an option. I don’t use them at the same time, why not just have them be the same device? Also helps with the fact that I might want to go back and forth between something in both modes.
Well, I just got the S24 Ultra and it’s darnn near tablet size. This dwarfs my previous Note. I’m just happy to finally have a flagship Samsung with a flat screen. Rounded screens suck.
Sales suggest, “Yes.”
Steve, it was fucking Steve wasn’t it?
No, Steve died
That selfish prick! I hope I missed his funeral.
I live in Korea and I see the Samsung foldable phones in the hands of like every 5th person, so yeah I’d say they sell
Interesting. Seattle, Washington pretty tech centric city, I’ve only seen the one guy. Mostly a 80/20 split between Iphone/Samsung flagship phones.
The US in general is obsessed with iPhones, more so than pretty much all other developed countries
That’s different than people asking for them. Between status symbols and advertising you can sell anything, weather it was asked for or not. On a real level the whole industry of advertising is to get people to buy things they wouldn’t buy otherwise.
Samsung is up to Fold 5, so at least someone keeps buying them. Though they are also up to Flip 5, a concept so dumb I honestly won’t believe anyone wants or uses one, so who knows.
I have seen 1 Fold in the wild, and even then, the guy’s screen was having issues.
I’ve had a Fold 4 for prolly 8 months now, no issues. But then, I baby my phone. No bigger screen issues either, but I clean it daily.
Yes. I have the fold 3 and will ask for another foldable when the time to upgrade comes.
Yes! Phones with small screens are not useful. Phones which don’t fit in pockets are not useful. Flip phones solve the problem and I’ve been wanting one for twenty years.
I think the solution is bigger pockets.
I can easily fit my 6.43 inches phone on my pockets, but that might not be true with women clothes.
Unless you want to have a tablet size screen in your pocket. Then I can see why foldable screens would be appealing
the problems:
- they’re crap
- they break easily because they’re crap
- they’re expensive and have a high cost of ownership because they’re crap
- NOBODY FUCKING WANTS THEM
so, why is this happening?
Personally, I love fold phones. They give me portability and a big screen which are the two things I most want in a phone
Yeah I totally believe that they break easily and are way too expensive. But that applies to any cutting edge product ever. Assuming the flaws can be engineered out, the fundamental benefit of having a large screen on a small/portable phone is definitely a killer feature.
I broke most of my previous phones in a variety of ways. The more expensive, the easier they broke. I can’t make a phone last. I’m afraid to even look at a foldable.
Um… I started with a Fold 2 and currently on a fold 5. Maybe YOU don’t want them, but it’s hardly nobody.
Shit on Apple for a lot of things, but if they put out a foldable it’s not likely to be crap hardware. Just overpriced with an annoying OS.
I get that Apple’s version would be the swankiest version, but I’m not there for it.
Like… they’d “do it right”, but the cost combined with whatever sacrifices they’d have to make for it to be “quality”… I dunno. Let’s see what they come up with.
The cost will be insane, absolutely. And the OS will be shit too. But they will most likely either release something worth buying, or nothing at all.
Just like Samsung’s phones then? 😆
You think Samsung hardware compares with Apple hardware? O.o
Don’t get me wrong, they don’t tend to put out shit. But they’ve also had a track record of issues like cracking screens and exploding batteries.
Apple tends to only put out the most polished version of something possible, assuming it ever sees the light of day. Their entire reputation is built around that point. If they release a foldable, the hardware will likely be on point.
That’s not to say it will be perfect, it’ll still be running their overly locked down walled garden POS software. But you’re telling me if Apple released a foldable that could have Android installed you wouldn’t be interested?
You must be forgetting that apple already did a folding phone years ago. It was called the iphone 6. That was the highest quality phone ive ever seen them make…
Ha, yes true enough. They do fuck up, though I think we can agree “my chassis bent by a couple degrees” and “my phone blew up” are on different levels.
Their worst fuck up imho was then throttling things when the battery was degraded without telling people. Literally just settled a class action on that too.
Not the antenna that lost signal when you held the phone in your left hand on the iphone 4. That was a pretty bad one.
But yeah, the throttling thing is terrible.
As for the exploding phones, whilst its definitely worse, the phone was recalled and discontinued within a month of release and no phone has experienced that problem since.
I find it interesting that people dont stop buying apple when they mess up with the single phone they release every cycle but samsung who develop multiple phones each cycle had one bad batch and thats all people remember.
Obviously, explosions are bad. I get that. But it was dealt with and they havent messed up like that si ce. Apple have screwed up multiple times and have carried out actions that forced users to buy new phones because their old ones become unusable. Thats so anti consumer it hurts.
iPhone 4 antenna “you’re holding it wrong”
iPhone 6 folding
Wireless mouse charge port on the bottom
Apple pencil charging on the iPad
iPads with display bright spots due to structural adhesives underneath letting go and cables pressing up
MacBook butterfly switches
Garbage cable quality all around
You’ll find issues with literally every hardware company out there. I’m not claiming that Apple is perfect, nor that they don’t make mistakes. I’m claiming the thing they worry about most is their image, and if they don’t think their foldable will be solid they won’t even let it see the light of day.
I’ve had my fold3 for over 2 years and I absolutely love it. I don’t think I can go back to a bar-phone now. Also, even if you really don’t like folding phones, why fight creativity? Before this phones were getting so boring and completely lacking innovation. They still are in the non-folding market. Even if you don’t like them, choice is never a bad thing.
Hard disagree, fold 4 gang.
I’d probably never buy one, but they are currently growing very quickly in China. They sold 1.2MM units in Q2 which is a 173% YoY growth rate.
People keep buying them because they don’t realize they are crap. We probably have another few years of this until the people with disposable money get tired of the crap phones.
I can’t imagine their resale value is very good either. The screens are plastic (they have to be to bend), which means they scratch incredibly easily. Though, I guess that is a good thing if you want to try a scratched-to-hell one that somehow got a tiny bit of dirt in the joint.
They aren’t crap at all, stop projecting your opinion as fact.
At worst they’re niche, but provide tangible and easily understandable benefits that you might not care about that others love. That’s like me hating on the newest Samsungs camera, just because I personally don’t value mobile photography.
Your complaints about durabilitu are pretty tied these days, the technology has improved a lot and you can realistically be as careless as you can with any other cell phone. There are valid concerns , such as Samsungs issue with hairline cracking along the hinge, but you can stop parroting points addressed over the past 5 years now.
you can realistically be as careless as you can with any other cell phone.
Hahahahaha… Right, right.
Something with a hinge can be treated the same as a bar where the glass is surrounded by plastic, say a Pixel? I don’t think so.
“Realistically”, something like this will always be a compromise on durability. There’s simply no way for something that bends in half to be “realistically” as durable as something that doesn’t.
Hell, I have different regular phones with massive durability differences (one is glass, titanium and ceramic, the other is all plastic), and none of them have a hinge (let alone a foldable screen). Which one of my phones is a folder as “realistically” durable as?
Let’s see the testing from the screen manufacturer defining how many folds the screen can do before a crease becomes apparent, or a pixel is lost.
Now let’s see the same test stats for a non-bending screen. Oh, yea, they don’t have that kind of durability testing, because they don’t have wear from bending.
You may wanna look up what “realistically” means.
Edit: so far
911 morons have shown they don’t know what realistically meansHad a fold 3 for almost 3 years and have had no issues at all. The screen is fine, with no scratches at all, heavy use. Dropped it multiple times. One time, i actually threw it because something made me jump whilst i was reading a map on it, and i just got a bit of a scratch on the metal frame from where it hit the tarmac.
No concerns about durability. If you are worried about that, then you have never used one.
Honesrly, I couldn’t be happier with it. I won’t be going back to non foldables any time soon. The loss of screen size would be too frustrating.
Come back when you have used one for as long as me and anyone else who has one before spouting this nonesense about durability. Because as the other comme ter said its a tired argument. It is only made by the uninformed.
And you might want to interact with the product you’re bashing before you talk so much shit about it. I own a 4 year old Z Flip I bought secondhand two years ago and I love it. I work in a mechanic shop and this phone has been dropped on concrete many times, had tools dropped on top of it, had chemicals spilled near or on it, been caught in the rain, and besides all that I open and close the fold a couple dozen times a day most every day. I put the cheapest Amazon phone case I could find on it and to date, I have developed a nearly invisible hairline crack in the very center of the fold that you can only even notice when the screen is off, and one tiny crack in the corner of the front screen that doesn’t fold. Whole phone is mint otherwise. It’s been incredibly durable over the two years I’ve had it, far above and beyond what I even expected when I bought it. And being able to fold out the screen for reading or watching videos, or gaming, or comfortable texting, is excellent.
Your point is taken in that yes a flat screen phone won’t have a folding hinge that will eventually wear out. But my phone has lasted me two years, after being bought used two years after its release, and I expect an easy 3 more before I end up replacing it so long as I don’t drop anything too heavy on it. I consider that a fine lifespan for a modern smartphone. I’ll probably never go back to a slab phone unless I don’t get a choice when the time comes for a new one.
Their screen is glass under the screen protector and OLED display. So like most phones out there with a screen protector.
As for durability, I have washed and dried my phone in the laundry and dropped my phone going 60mph out of my pocket while riding my motorcycle. Granted I have a case, but still. I’m currently using it to reply to your incorrect message.
The only improvement I care about is bringing back physical buttons. Touch screens suck ass. I don’t give a fuck about cameras. I don’t give a fuck about folding bullshit. All I want is an interface that doesn’t blow dick. Apple is garbage along with the rest of them. Clueless fucking morons.
Most of the buyers think that touchscreens are very future and normal buttons are very past, because touchscreens are like magic, look! And because everybody uses them. And because more pixels. And because they don’t have to reliably enter text most of the time. Especially not looking at the phone.
I think it all still gets down to people poking screens with their fingers thinking it looks smarter and more elegant (LOL). It has a lot to do with how it looks for others.
It’s more the fact that hardware buttons take away from screen real estate. Yeah, the touch method kinda sucks, but when you’re done with the keyboard it poofs away into more screen.
If you try to put a keyboard on a recent phone for example, and you don’t try to minimize it into oblivion, you’re losing about 4/5ths of the screen. That isn’t a crazy amount, but when you’re playing a game or watching a video, that loses out on quite a bit of space.
Not to mention the aspect ratio would be off for so many things.
That’s what I said in other words - it’s for people for whom bigger display is more important than input.
Sad that Jolla’s thing with “the other half” didn’t take off. Or some other standard way to extend these things.
I remember hearing something a few years ago about some companies working on better tactile feedback on touch screen buttons, making them more “clicky” and feeling more like real physical buttons. Sounded complicated and I don’t think anyone really did anything with it except for Samsung making the home button super clicky on my old Galaxy. I wonder if that will ever resurface, it seemed like a good compromise for folks who wanted real buttons.
Nope. It’s still a touch screen. The issue isn’t tactile feedback or a lack of it because with touch screens you can miss the button you’re trying to hit.
A miss is still a miss regardless of the touch screen vibrating or whatever the hell it’s doing to give you “tactile feedback”.
Nothing will change how shitty touch screens are and how easy it is to fat finger. I never had any of these problems on my old phone that had a physical keyboard.
My fingers are not very precise, and also sweaty very often. When they are sweaty, I basically use touchscreens only if I absolutely have to. Sweaty fingers are an inconvenience with everything, but they weren’t a practical problem with normal buttons.
It’s not about feedback only, also clear tactile button separation, not registering touches.
Repurposable physical buttons - maybe.
The more expensive way is with them being transparent and having their own small displays or being above the matrix, and has some similarities with what you say, the less expensive way is like Sony controllers.
BTW, PSP Slim was the most usable pocket computer I’ve touched. Text input was slow, but compared to touchscreens - more comfortable.
Only folding phone I’ll accept is a Surface Duo type setup. Don’t fold the panel itself, just have a different panel.
With a seam? I think I’d personally absolutely hate that.
Okay
Samsung briefly had an S4 like this. Oh, I so wanted it to come to market.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Apple is purportedly working on a foldable iPhone internally, according to “a person with direct knowledge of the situation” speaking to The Information.
The report has a long list of design challenges that Apple has faced in developing foldable phones: they’re too thick when folded up; they’re easily broken; they would cost more than non-foldable versions; the seam in the middle of the display tends to be both visible and feel-able; and the hinge on an iPad-sized device would prevent the device from sitting flat on a table (though this concern hasn’t stopped Apple from introducing substantial camera bumps on many of its tablets and all of its phones).
If many of those challenges sound familiar, it’s because it’s a detailed list of virtually every bad thing you could say about current foldable Android phones, even after multiple hardware generations.
Our first Pixel Fold didn’t even survive the pre-release review period, and those well-earned durability concerns plus the relatively high cost have limited foldable phones to roughly 1.6 percent of all smartphone sales, according to recent analyst estimates.
It makes sense that Apple would be testing some big swings as it thinks about the next era of iPhone design; our iPhone 15 review called them the iPhone’s “final form,” insofar as it feels like there’s not much room to continue to improve on the iPhone X-style full-screen design that Apple has been iterating on since 2017.
It sounds like foldable phones will only be in Apple’s future if the company can manage to overcome the same issues that have tripped up other foldables—though to be fair, the company does have a pretty good decadeslong track record on that front.
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