Other iPhone foldable is the most clear Apple downfall yet.

[Macbookey]

if they build an iPad sized iPhone without stylus support imma throw hands

The Newton reborn but with glory this time. Gotta have  Pencil support. Makes no sense to leave it out. Would make for a fantastic pocket notebook and it gives Timmy a chance to sell an accessory with a high markup. Perhaps an iPhone specific Pencil as it could use magnets to latch onto and charge the same as the iPad, but in a smaller and practical form factor.

 

[SoyMaxV]

I have to say if Apple actually releases a foldable iPhone, it will be the most clear sign that the company has abandoned a lot of Steve Jobs principles that got it to where it is. Foldable phones go 100% against Apple philosophy. It's the next netbook. It's a stupid gimmick that compromises design principles of durability, aesthetic and to add what? Few inches of plastic screen.
This will be the biggest sign on the wall "I'm Tim Cook, I don't know what else to create, so I've do another Newton". Apple Vision was the first product they made that while nowhere near as bad as a foldable phone, was the first device that didn't have a proper use case. And released 8 years too early. Because....investors, stock, we need to innovate? Yeah, probably. There was a lot internal resistance at Apple before the release. For a good reason. It made no sense. As a concept in the future, Apple Vision may make sense. (watch didn't have a killer app - yes, but they have pulled it off eventually, difference is tech to build a good product was there).

But foldable phone...Steve Jobs said many times "we don't ship junk". It's junk. Do you remember how nuts Steve went before original iPhone release when he scratched a prototype plastic screen? He made Corning go nuclear to retool the factory to have a glass screen before 2007. And they will ship plastic ******** for 2+ grand...?

Just genuinely sad to see company giving up on what it stood for. Slowly, gradually.

Steve Jobs launched the iPhone 4 and then told people they were holding it wrong.

 

[Bungaree.Chubbins]

Try a folding phone...

Since I have one, every time I pick up the iPhone it seems completely outdated.

I did try one, and don’t want to touch one again. And that was before I saw the AU$3000(give or take) price tag!

If someone gave me one, it might live in my bedside drawer for night-time web browsing? A folding phone doesn’t do anything my current devices don’t already do better.

 

[TechRunner]

You honestly can't see a foldable iPhone as a celebrity/influencer bauble? I sure can. And that willl help its status a lot.

 

[doolar]

I hope Apple makes a good foldable. If executed well it could replace my iPad and iPhone into one device.

It would be kinda fun if whoever announces it goes ”a phone, a tablet, are you getting it? It’s not two separate devices…”

My worries? Inferior display, water- and dust proofing and battery life, in that order.

But I’m willing to take some compromises.

 

[frou]

I don't think it's rational to have such an extreme position without having had hands-on time with the device. Scepticism, sure, but that was a bit much.

 

[aries81]

Whenever I see threads like this I feel like there’s a huge amount of people out there who seem to think that Apple owes them something.

 

[baconcat_8964]

I tried both flip and fold phones before, and I agree with what the Vergecast said: "If you cannot afford to buy two foldable phones and walk out of the store, you might not be able to afford a foldable phone."

 

[P_Watt]

it's going to be £2000+ therefore not a big seller outside of the USA, but it would worry me so much that it might crease or crack that I would feel obliged to open and close it a million times to prove a point, then be disappointed!

 

[uacd]

There is definitely gonna be a sharp divide in iPhone userbase. I can see some users want foldable iPhone, and some even hate the whole concept. Also another round of series fragmentation won’t benefit sales in the long run (regular, pro, max, air, fold, “e”, whatelse…).

For me foldable is a gimmick as well. I had seen aggressive marketing that Samsung does for their foldables, honestly, is that a modern age flip-phone? Back in 2005 or 2008 flips were a type of phone elder people loved because “it didn’t make accidental calls”.

I also wonder how it will look like from PR standpoint when Apple unveils the foldable, whole Android community gonna say smth like “we had foldables for more than 10 years already”, displays literally supplied by their key competitor, cheaper options are already on the market… And main question “what’s the point?”.

It won’t sell good in Europe due to already high taxes (who would buy 2500-2700€ smartphone?), people will stick to older “classic” phones.

For me foldable phone is imitation of innovation. I want small phones back, that would be. A phone is a phone, for other things there are iPads, Macs and Macbooks. Phone display must be small yet hold only the most important information

 

[fatTribble]

When a post begins with mentions of Steve Jobs or Tim Cook, it loses credibility with me.
Talk about the products. Like @russell_314 points out, Apple sells products and makes money. If the products are good and there is a demand, they will likely sell.

Apple has grown tremendously and offers many more products. People don’t have to love and buy every product. If you don’t care for a product it doesn’t mean the company is doomed.

 

[uacd]

Steve Jobs launched the iPhone 4 and then told people they were holding it wrong.

He told it but the whole issue was very exaggerated by media, most phones didn’t have this issue. The one I still have that I downgraded to iOS 5 for fun has great cellular coverage, but dying battery, flickering screen due to it being dropped back in the days, as well as broken back glass. This phone was a very successful model. The only downside is easily crackable back glass that wasn’t as reinforced as modern glass iPhones

 

[uacd]

Whenever I see threads like this I feel like there’s a huge amount of people out there who seem to think that Apple owes them something.

Some people invest in their stocks and when there are news they are about to release another theoretically flip-flop product of course some are gonna be nervous. So yeah, Apple technically owes them.

Another thing is psychological and emotional investment. People love their fav company to stay OG instead of selling out and copying competitors. It might be hard pill for fans to take when company releases something that doesn’t correspond to their own design philosophy and values (recyclability, reusability).

On the other hand, market is full of useless products. For example a segway or amazon alexa, I dunno who uses them but if those still on the market then someone actually buys it! Can’t be bad for company to have more money. But Apple is risking to repeat Nokia’s fate if they fragment too much, back in 90s they have also been making all kinds of products - printers, computers, cameras, “tablets”, maybe even vacuum cleaners. Then Jobs came back, said “now we are vacuuming whole place” and Apple started their rebirth

 

[SoyMaxV]

He told it but the whole issue was very exaggerated by media, most phones didn’t have this issue. The one I still have that I downgraded to iOS 5 for fun has great cellular coverage, but dying battery, flickering screen due to it being dropped back in the days, as well as broken back glass. This phone was a very successful model. The only downside is easily crackable back glass that wasn’t as reinforced as modern glass iPhones

Antennagate was a real issue and Steve's response to it was terrible. And my point was that he shipped many products that weren't great, which OP seems to imply was not the case.

 

[aries81]

Some people invest in their stocks and when there are news they are about to release another theoretically flip-flop product of course some are gonna be nervous. So yeah, Apple technically owes them.

I highly doubt those are the ones starting these threads. It’s always the ones that expect Apple products to solve world hunger, make coffee, print money and fix relationships.

 

[antiprotest]

Apple has been shipping junk for years now, both hardware and software. Even if it ends up being trash, they will be OK, at least for a number of years still. Indeed, they are falling behind on multiple fronts, but they still have a lot of margin to lose before I'd say Apple is doomed.

 

[cateye]

In other news, Steve Jobs still dead. Experts predict he is likely to stay dead. Turning to weather, sunny with a 100% chance of Steve Jobs being dead. In Sports, Steve Jobs was forced to forfeit the game because he's dead.

Talk about the products. Like @russell_314 points out, Apple sells products and makes money. If the products are good and there is a demand, they will likely sell.

(standing applause)

Everything else is marketing and the weird, cult-like obsession with putting Apple on a pedestal. They're just another consumer electronics company. No better or worse than any other, and always have been. Any belief to the contrary is being a victim of marketing.

 

[ignatius345]

I have to say if Apple actually releases a foldable iPhone, it will be the most clear sign that the company has abandoned a lot of Steve Jobs principles that got it to where it is. Foldable phones go 100% against Apple philosophy. It's the next netbook. It's a stupid gimmick that compromises design principles of durability, aesthetic and to add what? Few inches of plastic screen.
This will be the biggest sign on the wall "I'm Tim Cook, I don't know what else to create, so I've do another Newton". Apple Vision was the first product they made that while nowhere near as bad as a foldable phone, was the first device that didn't have a proper use case. And released 8 years too early. Because....investors, stock, we need to innovate? Yeah, probably. There was a lot internal resistance at Apple before the release. For a good reason. It made no sense. As a concept in the future, Apple Vision may make sense. (watch didn't have a killer app - yes, but they have pulled it off eventually, difference is tech to build a good product was there).

But foldable phone...Steve Jobs said many times "we don't ship junk". It's junk. Do you remember how nuts Steve went before original iPhone release when he scratched a prototype plastic screen? He made Corning go nuclear to retool the factory to have a glass screen before 2007. And they will ship plastic ******** for 2+ grand...?

Just genuinely sad to see company giving up on what it stood for. Slowly, gradually.

Oh FFS. Go back far enough in the forums here or elsewhere and can find loads of armchair analysts saying the same thing about the iPad, prattling on about how it was just a gigantic iPod Touch that nobody would buy -- Apple was losing their way, out of ideas, and most of all doomed.

 

[jbachandouris]

Another one of these threads.

Exactly. With all the things mods ban, these threads should be on the list. Mac rumors not Mac whiners.

 

[RSB96]

I did try one, and don’t want to touch one again. And that was before I saw the AU$3000(give or take) price tag!

If someone gave me one, it might live in my bedside drawer for night-time web browsing? A folding phone doesn’t do anything my current devices don’t already do better.

It depends on the user, that's for sure. A folding "book" type both by price and concept I think is very specific. I see it as having a normal phone and an iPad mini in a single device and, at least in the case of Samsung, it knows how to give software that lives up to both uses. Folded is a normal Samsung phone, but unfolded has all the features of Samsung tablets, with window management and very powerful multitasking.

If Apple releases a foldable iPhone, the least I ask is that when it unfolds we have iPadOS running, while folded it has iOS like any iPhone. If you don't have that, it would be a complete disappointment to me.

In my case, which I communicate with clients mainly via message/email, I like it because I can save and upload files to my Google Drive, where I have all my clients" files and I don't depend on anything to save documents anywhere. Having a big screen also makes it more comfortable to read long documents.

There is definitely gonna be a sharp divide in iPhone userbase. I can see some users want foldable iPhone, and some even hate the whole concept. Also another round of series fragmentation won’t benefit sales in the long run (regular, pro, max, air, fold, “e”, whatelse…).

For me foldable is a gimmick as well. I had seen aggressive marketing that Samsung does for their foldables, honestly, is that a modern age flip-phone? Back in 2005 or 2008 flips were a type of phone elder people loved because “it didn’t make accidental calls”.

I also wonder how it will look like from PR standpoint when Apple unveils the foldable, whole Android community gonna say smth like “we had foldables for more than 10 years already”, displays literally supplied by their key competitor, cheaper options are already on the market… And main question “what’s the point?”.

It won’t sell good in Europe due to already high taxes (who would buy 2500-2700€ smartphone?), people will stick to older “classic” phones.

For me foldable phone is imitation of innovation. I want small phones back, that would be. A phone is a phone, for other things there are iPads, Macs and Macbooks. Phone display must be small yet hold only the most important information

For me, a folding book style is not the same as a shell style phone. I find the former more useful than the latter.

The folding "shell" phone I see as useful for people who want to have a screen of more than 6.5," but do not want to always carry that size in their pocket, since they become uncomfortable for certain people and pants. With the exterior displays that carry the latest Razr and Flip 7, they have a perfect display for viewing messages and responding to short messages and seeing specific things without deploying it. For normal use, you deploy it and have a large device in your hand, but compact in your pocket.

However, for me, the foldable "book" phone is the most useful, since you have a normal phone, which you can use like a regular phone, and deployed you have a "mini tablet," with the advantages of having a device large enough to be able to do certain productive tasks. Obviously, it does not replace a laptop, and perhaps not a 12/14" tablet, but it is capable of replacing an 8/10" tablet, especially if it has the same software as manufacturer tablets, as is the case with Samsung.

 

[darkpaw]

That would be perfect, that when you opened it became iPadOS.

The iPhone Fold will come with one of two operating systems: iOS or iPadOS.

If it comes with iOS it's an iPhone.

If it comes with iPadOS it's a folding iPad, and Apple have some marketing to do to explain that.

Apple spent ages splitting iOS into iOS and iPadOS because they said the two devices do different things. If they now have an iPhone that uses iPadOS they've muddied the waters.

What I can see happening is the iPhone Fold will come with iOS, but iOS will have extra features enabled that allow it to work with the iPhone Fold's multiple screens/larger screen. You might not get fullscreen multitasking or even Stage Manager in the first release, but you will get apps that fill the screen, fullscreen movies etc. There will be compromises in the first version, as there always are.

At next year's WWDC in June, Apple will either:
- Preview the iPhone Fold and the new features in iOS, to give developers time to update their apps to make use of the new screen(s)/screen size. That would make it a success on launch, as Apple could market how "there are a thousand apps already ready for it," etc.
- Not preview it at all, and when the iPhone Fold is announced in September just before iOS 27 is released, apps will just magically fill the screen by default (if they're written well). A new beta of iOS 27 will drop which contains new features that developers can then use to update their apps. That would annoy developers though, as they would have to rush their updates, and there's a risk that showstopper bugs might've made it into the public release. Quite dangerous for Apple.

Just thinking out loud.

 

[NeonNights]

I clearly recall despising netbooks because they were underpowered with tiny keyboards. A foldable phone is nothing like that, other than the clamshell profile.

Having 2-3 apps open at the same time allows me to be more productive on my Fold 6 than any previous flagship slab phone. And I can kick back and enjoy content on the larger inner display too. I ditched my 12.9" iPad Pro after getting the Fold 4 and am now on the Fold 6. I love my MacBook but am not returning to an iPhone unless it's a foldable.

 

[heretiq]

This will be the biggest sign on the wall "I'm Tim Cook, I don't know what else to create, so I've do another Newton".

Did you ever own or use a Newton? I suspect the answer is no.

I owned three of them OMP, MP120 and MP2100. These were extraordinary devices that were ahead of their time and which paved the way for Apple Silicon.

I respect the judgment of people who actually shipped products.

 

[williamofockham]

you mean worse than the newton, the iBook g3 ,or the Lisa (disclosure
: I owned one of each)

 

[curnalpanic]

What?! Did Apple release a foldable phone? I must have missed it.