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What's telling is that even 5 years ago, as soon as a new iPhone came out, lots of android manufactures rushed to get lookalikes out the door in 2-3 months.

Now, no one bothers, or cares.

Because since the death of Steve Jobs and the departure of Jonny Ive Apple is no longer especially interested in either design or innovation.
 
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I for one am intrigued with foldable phones. I use my phone to design rollercoasters, run my silver mine in Peru and use it to check out the women i frequent with. The more screen real estate I have the better.
I have a line on some copper leases, and several rotund cst mommiee. wait
Flexing material and electronic circuits is bound to cause problems. The phone looked pretty good in the video review, probably the best foldable I have seen, but what will it look like in a year of use? All of the foldables I have seen in the wild have godawful creases from flexing the screen at the hinge. It seems to me to be a lot of money for something inherently fragile. Also, the crease was noticeable to me even in the video if this relatively new example, and I prefer iOS over Android. Finally, IMO there are security considerations regarding the country of origin.
I think the tech is interesting. But it does seem very un-Apple like. Apple devices, all of them, are pretty darn solid. I still use my old 6s+ occasionally, and it still looks and works exactly as it did the day I took it out of the box in... 2015? My 2011 Macbook Air is still a solid workhorse.

I feel like a folding screen is going to look and feel like a methhead's white Saturn sedan inside of 9 months.
 
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Typical macrumors member "Folding phones are dumb!"

in the next year 'Apple Announces folding iphone!' "macrumors member - take my money!!!" :rolleyes::p
Apple usually waits until tech actually works.

The issue with current foldables is that they aren't durable. My friend went through 5 Samsung Folds in slightly more than 2 years.

They always break in one of 2 ways.
a) the plastic screen wears down, especially around the crease area, then the OLED panel itself starts breaking due to added strain.
b) the hinge wears down.

b) will be fixed sooner or later, someone will develop a reliable hinge, it's just a matter of time.

But how would you address the screen issues? The screen can't be glass, because glass doesn't fold. But plastic is a terrible material for a screen...
 
Apple usually waits until tech actually works.

The issue with current foldables is that they aren't durable. My friend went through 5 Samsung Folds in slightly more than 2 years.

They always break in one of 2 ways.
a) the plastic screen wears down, especially around the crease area, then the OLED panel itself starts breaking due to added strain.
b) the hinge wears down.

b) will be fixed sooner or later, someone will develop a reliable hinge, it's just a matter of time.

But how would you address the screen issues? The screen can't be glass, because glass doesn't fold. But plastic is a terrible material for a screen...
Lots of reports in this thread of the opposite. The tech seems to be a LOT better now. Keep an open mind. Did you watch the video? Seems amazing.
 
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I feel like a folding screen is going to look and feel like a methhead's white Saturn sedan inside of 9 months.
That just goes to show you've never used one. I've had 4 of them over a year each, no problems, even when there was a question of reliability on the first version.
 
When is Apple going to start being more innovative with their design? Samsung, OnePlus, and even Motorola with their flip. We get a notch or island to contend with and phones that haven't changed much from year to year as of late.
 
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I would suggest you read up on China as a country sometime, followed by Chinese business and environmental practices. You will find your answers there.
We read yesterday how Apple's relationship with China was a likely factor in the cancellation of Jon Stewart's show. I'm not sure anymore how buying Apple instead of OnePlus is really making much of a difference.

I’m over 50 and have to say that one thing age provides is experience. Experiencing what it was like to own and use devices that had plastic screens that scratched, took on imprints from styluses or fingernails or keys, coins, etc.

No matter what anyone says today about foldable screens with ultra thin glass covers that require a plastic screen protector, they are never going to survive in big volumes the way a thicker glass screen has proven out.

And no, there is no pending change in physics that will allow a rigid crystalline substrate to also be foldable.

So you can suggest that older people are averse to change, but I’ll counter that with your desire for something doesn’t make it the right thing or even a thing that will ever become mainstream, simply because you want it to be.

I'm 55, and very intrigued by this phone. The fragility of the internal screen is far less important when you consider it is encased in a clamshell when not in use. 100% of the damage on my iPhones (3, 4s, 6, Xr, 13) has been a result of contact with something else in my pocket. I suspect this is true for most people who haven't dropped their phones or gotten them wet.
 
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The problem I have with its UW and Telephoto cameras, is that their full resolution output looks like a poorly upscaled ~12MP image. The ~12MP files look nice, but not different enough from the native 12MP of the iPhone 15 Pro to warrant the upgrade. Yes, a bit less noise and slightly more room during RAW processing.

But what I ultimately want is the same quality we get from the main camera, or very similar to it. I hope that next year, when iPhone 16 Pro is rumored to get 48MP UW shooter, it's not going to be the same crap as this.
 
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Typical macrumors member "Folding phones are dumb!"

in the next year 'Apple Announces folding iphone!' "macrumors member - take my money!!!" :rolleyes::p
I remember specifically when Lion introduced the fullscreen concept. People praised Apple for making great use of screen real estate. Many of those same people said Windows was "stupid" for maximizing windows because it wasn't good use of screen real estate.
 
It will take another 5 years for Apple to come up with an idea of foldable…
Doubt it. Apple almost surely has concepts in the works, my prediction has been the first folding iPhone will be released 2-3 years from now, and it will be similar to iPhone X. More a proof-of-concept and then it will become the standard form factor by the end of the decade. Once people have been introduced to the concept and warm up to it. And that will happen, it's just a question of when.
 
Remember back when iPhone users didn't see the appeal of phablets.
I remember how 3.5" was the perfect size for a phone, and anything bigger was bad. But then when the iPhone 5 came out, 4" was the perfect size for a phone, and anything bigger was bad.

Just like how specs never matter on smartphones unless iPhone has the best specs, then specs are critically important.
 
Prior to the wide adoption of smartphones, folding phones (i.e. clamshells) were the most popular choice, and for good reason. Anyone remember the near phenonomen that was the starTAC back in 1996? It wasn't just a clamshell, it was in many ways the first fashion-oriented phone, too.
 
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I remember specifically when Lion introduced the fullscreen concept. People praised Apple for making great use of screen real estate. Many of those same people said Windows was "stupid" for maximizing windows because it wasn't good use of screen real estate.
Apple stans can’t accept the hypocrisy.

Look at the VR/AR segment! They hated everything about it until the $3500 Vision Pro announcement!

I just want one of these hypocrites to apologize and tell me - ‘hey born again - I was wrong. The Apple logo changes my logic’
 
Apple stans can’t accept the hypocrisy.

Look at the VR/AR segment! They hated everything about it until the $3500 Vision Pro announcement!

I just want one of these hypocrites to apologize and tell me - ‘hey born again - I was wrong. The Apple logo changes my logic’
Remember when Steve Jobs said in a 1996 interview that he and Apple were always shameless about stealing great ideas?


Straight from the horse's mouth. If there is a good idea, Apple will copy it. And perhaps improve upon it. They will absolutely have a folding iPhone out within 2-3 years, and everyone here who has said folding phones are stupid and useless will either buy it or at least praise it.
 
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I would not be interested in a foldable device but I understand its appeal to users who want to bring along a phone and a mini iPad.
Impressed by how slick the UI is.

Question; anything known about the durability? I always feel like the actual center spot where it hinges is vulnerable because it’s under stress and movement.
 
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Remember back when iPhone users didn't see the appeal of phablets.
I will bite.

Apple users were wrong. Once.

Somehow, this keeps getting held up as a blanket shield against subsequent criticism of Samsung. Just because Samsung was right once, it means they could be right again, and nobody seems willing to put their money where their mouth is and call out poor design decisions on Samsung's end.

It's been what? 3-4 years since Samsung started trying to make folding smartphones a thing? Maybe Samsung is thinking that even a small percentage of a very large smartphone pie can still translate into an impressive number of foldable sold. But from what I have seen so far, sales numbers remain lackluster (in part perhaps because Samsung hasn't been able to bring down the price as much as they had hoped).

Whatever foldables adoption that has materialized in Asia may reflect more about a dearth of premium Android options relative to the iPhone. There is no evidence to suggest iPhone users are jumping to foldables. Instead, Android to iPhone switching rates have actually accelerated in recent years.

I don't know what it will take for foldable to take off, but the stars don't seem to have been aligning for them thus far.
 
Steve Jobs (huckster extraordinaire) pushed the whole "phablets are bad" thing, and Apple users were bamboozled by the Reality Distortion Field...?
 
Prior to the wide adoption of smartphones, folding phones (i.e. clamshells) were the most popular choice, and for good reason. Anyone remember the near phenonomen that was the starTAC back in 1996? It wasn't just a clamshell, it was in many ways the first fashion-oriented phone, too.
Wow. Someone older than me. The starTAC name is familliar, but no, I don't remember it. Had to look it up.


I vaguely remember around then, thinking that cell phones were just a way for showoffs to show off, and they kind of looked like jerk villians in movies... 🤔
 
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Soft plastic and moving parts are terrible. The wear of it‘s material is something Apple will not implement (this way).
Maybe there will be an alternative to the actual foldable design without it‘s flaws when Apple might release a „foldable“ design.
 
Foldable is clearly the future. At least until we all have glasses/contact lenses that let virtual screens be as big as we want.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say Android contacts will be around $500 and the Apple Edition gold plated contacts around $12,000.
 
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