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Report: Apple's First Foldables Coming in 2025 and 2026

It's fine for Samsung et al to ship phones with poor folding screens, because we're all used to them shipping substandard products.

If Apple does it, though, they are going to get skewered by the media and the public.

In other words, there's no way Apple can afford to ship one of these badboys until the folding screen tech is good enough.
 
JimmyHook said:
Apple has patents for self-healing creases in foldables. If they can pull off a device that has none of the issues I’ve seen in EVERY other foldable, then it would sell very well.
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...assuming the price isn't exorbitant
 
SoldOnApple said:
While Samsung and others have been releasing Foldables as soon as they could, Apple has been putting money into R&D into materials and technologies to do it right the first time.
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I have a different theory. Apple didn't pay much attention to these new types of devices and when others were working on developing and launching Foldable smartphones apple was still "looking into it".
It's obvious big improvements were made overall to the hardware in the last 2 years and this trend only continues, Apple will have to compete with the Z Fold 8 or 9 which won't be anything like the current foldables that are on the market right now.
If Apple was really putting the effort and working on launching such a device from the start it wouldn't have taken this long.

SoldOnApple said:
Will the first time be next year, who knows. But Apple has had a lot of time to study this so who knows. Apple don't publish their research so it's anyone's guess where they are at. Even if Apple has "cracked" it, they still need to wait until they can mass produce it. No point having the perfect foldable design if each one would cost $10,000 to make.
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I doubt apple will launch "the perfect foldable", there's no guarantee their version will be better in terms of hardware than what will be available on the market by that time.
 
wanha said:
It's fine for Samsung et al to ship phones with poor folding screens, because we're all used to them shipping substandard products.

If Apple does it, though, they are going to get skewered by the media and the public.

In other words, there's no way Apple can afford to ship one of these badboys until the folding screen tech is good enough.
Click to expand...
Samsung is equally "skewered by the media and the public" if they "ship phones with poor folding screens and substandard products". The reality is they simply don't do that. Apart for the problems with their first generation which they handled well, they sold in the tens of millions of foldables. If the phones had "poor screens" and were "substandard products" there would have been an avalanche of complains which would have put and end to the foldable phones market, as Samsung always had the majority of this market. The fact that Apple is planning on launching a foldable smartphone as well, proves the opposite of what you are claiming.
 
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I can't wait for this to run out of stock within minutes only to come here and see everyone that was insisting they would "never buy such a phone" only to complain they can't buy one....ahh macrumors, you never cease to disappoint
 
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Fixing a problem that doesn't exist

Give me a more scratch resistant screen and a longer lasting battery
 
So first we had different years for release, then they would be delayed, then they were cancelled, and now we are back to next year and 2026 🤣
I'll believe an Apple foldable is out when it's physically out, they cannot get rid of the crease it seems on any device and durability is also a big concern.
 
This still feels like a solution in search of a problem.

A foldable MacBook? All MacBooks are foldable. If you mean a MacBook with touchscreen instead of a keyboard then that's just a worse MacBook. Remember how popular the Touch Bar was? Now imagine that for the whole keyboard.

An iPad? Sorta seems like it might be useful at first glance, but if you think about it, not really. So I can use it folded up, using the outside screen (which is usually compromised in some way on competitors devices), but then I'm holding a device that's twice as thick, bulky and heavy as a normal device that size. Or I can open it up, and have a device that's mostly the same as a non-folding iPad that size, except it has a crease, decreased longevity and resilience, and has whatever other compromises were necessitated by the hinge and second screen (presumably less battery life, or it has to be thicker and heavier to fit the same amount of battery in). And what have I gained? It's (arguably) easier to store? No thanks.

An iPhone? Pocketability might be improved I suppose, if the device gets half as long but twice as thick? I dunno, I use a Mini so it fits my pocket fine anyway. I'd have thought that added thickness might be more of a hindrance than a boon when it comes to pocketability but I don't really know.

The only real value-add I can see here is the kind that are normal phone size when folded (so remain pocketable) but fold out to small iPad size. That could be useful. Not sure it's worth the compromises, but maybe.
 
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NeutraLNinja said:
I have a different theory. Apple didn't pay much attention to these new types of devices and when others were working on developing and launching Foldable smartphones apple was still "looking into it".
It's obvious big improvements were made overall to the hardware in the last 2 years and this trend only continues, Apple will have to compete with the Z Fold 8 or 9 which won't be anything like the current foldables that are on the market right now.
If Apple was really putting the effort and working on launching such a device from the start it wouldn't have taken this long.


I doubt apple will launch "the perfect foldable", there's no guarantee their version will be better in terms of hardware than what will be available on the market by that time.
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Apple is still working on the software, can't even get multitasking right on the iPad.
 
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…we’re going back to the days of the newspaper. 😯

Still, I’ll believe it when I see it. Not least bit interested in a foldable. The more moving parts the less durability (especially in my rough hands haha)

I’m interested to see how the camera bump turns out. Maybe they keep it as a way to know what direction to open it when it’s still in pocket/pocketbook?…
 
Fuzzball84 said:
Bet they have a team testing these folding screens to their limits…

Wonder what number of open closes they will be aiming for…
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Samsung has always said around 200k folds for the ZF4, not sure if they upped that for the 5 which has a more robust hinge, there are a few youtube videos where they achieved close to double that. You can also look up and view the actual process Samsung uses to automate folding these for testing, it's pretty neat. OnePlus rates theirs at a million folds. Honestly the entire fragility and breaking screens thing is so incredibly overhyped, if there was an epidemic do you think the media, which lambasted the exploding Note 7, would give Samsung a break? Folding screens are very robust, and in many ways MORE safe than a regular phone because when closed they are fully protected. My ZF5 inner screen is completely pristine, versus my IP Pro Max which is full of micro swirls and areas where the oleophobic coating is wearing off.
 
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