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Posted by mgh2 2 days ago

Samsung taking market share from Apple in U.S. as foldable phones gain momentum(www.cnbc.com)
273 points | 317 commentspage 5
corn13read2 2 days ago|
Apple is probably baffled as to why 10 generations of foldable by the competition my set them back some. I guarantee one day Apple will figure out how to put touch in a laptop and it will be world changing </s> I can’t name a single real iPhone innovation in a decade.
vachina 2 days ago||
Foldables are a fad. Yeah, you can doomscroll with a bigger screen, but having to baby it? Also foldables, even when folded are bulkier. For whatever usecases for foldables, a tablet is more suitable.
jajuuka 2 days ago|
Believe it or not people use phones for different purposes. Some people carry phones in bags or purses where space not a not a big concern. Some people use their phones for work and a bigger screen is helpful in the process and for multitasking. Some people aren't rough with their phones either.

A fad doesn't last this long. We are on year 7 of foldables available in the mainstream and sales and production are only increasing. Every major OEM has at least foldable or is releasing one soon. 3D TV's were fully dead in 7 years for context.

Night_Thastus 2 days ago||
I'll be totally honest, I do not get the appeal of foldable phones, at least with the designs I've seen so far.

I guess you can unfold it to get a bigger 2-part screen? That's about it?

I'd imagine that having it be un-foldable compromises the battery life, overall thickness (when folded) and weight to at least some extent - plus it costs way more. Is the additional screen real-estate really worth that?

bluGill 2 days ago||
If your eyes are young and you only use the phone alone. If you are older you need reading glasses for small screens. If you are showing a video to someone else you need a larger screen to see detail.

of course not knowing you or your uses I can't say if any of this should matter to you. Still it seems like a nice idia not a fad. Only time will tell if people really want it once the fad is over.

bhelkey 2 days ago|||
> it be un-foldable compromises the battery life, overall thickness (when folded) and weight to at least some extent

Not as much as you would think.

The Galaxy Fold 7 has a 6.5" outer screen (as compared to 6.3" screen in the iPhone 16 pro), is 8.9mm thick when folded (8.25mm in the iPhone 16 pro), has a 4400mAh battery (3,582 mAh in the iPhone 16 pro), and weighs 215g (199 grams for the iPhone 16 pro).

> plus it costs way more

The big downsides are price of $1999 launch price as compared to $999 launch price for the iphone 16 pro and durability. For durability, the foldable screens seem to be very soft making it easy to damage, say with a thumbnail.

kace91 2 days ago|||
I could see it for older people.

My mom and uncles all use extremely large font sizes, they’re barely able to see a whole text at once and they check pictures by traversing them while highly zoomed.

pinkmuffinere 2 days ago|||
It doesn’t appeal to me either, but I’ve often heard “functionality, taken to an extreme, becomes fashion”. I think that might be what’s happening here. There are _some_ cases in which you might want a foldable phone. But even if you don’t need it, a (good) foldable phone becomes a status symbol.

See also: expensive mechanical watches, sports cars, bottles that hold temperature for 24 hours

bee_rider 2 days ago|||
I’d much rather have a screen that unfurls like a scroll.
__s 2 days ago||
Checkout Huawei Mate XT: 2 folds

It could be an SNL skit

Zigurd 2 days ago|
I hope the iPhone Air is successful. Folding phones seems so obviously a gimmick. A year from now many of these relatively affordable folding phones will be e-trash, and social media will be full of complaints and retrospective wisdom about how they could never have been reliable. But consumer product offerings are full of gimmicks. Apple is trying not to give into herd mentality.
ThrowawayTestr 2 days ago||
My parents are both on their third flip phones. Some people really like the form factor
hu3 2 days ago||
It's funny. When/If Apple releases a foldable iPhone, suddenly most of these critics will think it's the greatest idea ever.
Zigurd 2 days ago||
Just like Apple released touchscreen laptops, amirite? They were a bad idea and a crime against ergonomics.
bigyabai 2 days ago||
This but unironically. The funniest product in Apple's lineup right now, bar none, is the iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard. Apple spent 15 years refining their replacement for the laptop, and it's a touchscreen laptop that runs less software.

You'd think that Apple would stop themselves after reinventing the 2013 Microsoft Surface. Then they reprised Hololens with Vision Pro - how was nobody paying attention to Microsoft's failures at Cupertino?

thewebguyd 1 day ago|||
tbh, Apple lost the plot for the iPad with iPadOS 26.

They brought floating windows, a menu bar, and more mouse and keyboard features but then took away the UX that made it a great touch tablet - no more slide over, and no more quick split view you have to drag the windows your self or tap the green dot and then choose your split ratio - too many extra clicks.

They managed to turn it from a great tablet to a shitty laptop to the point that now I don't even see a reason for owning one if you have a macbook air, unless you REALLY need the pencil.

izacus 1 day ago|||
It's a touchscreen laptop that runs less software and somehow costs more than the actually great laptop they sell at similar size. That magic keyboard pricing is... woof.
fennecbutt 1 day ago|||
Wdym? Why act like the iPhone air is the start of the thin phone trend when the Samsung edge came out before it, and I'm sure plenty of other specifically targeting thinness phones came out even before that. Sounds like Apple is giving into "herd mentality" (which isn't actually a bad thing as long as the herd follows consumer needs).

Oh, but then it wouldn't be a special little club.

Apocryphon 2 days ago|||
The iPhone Air will quite likely be successful, but it's also plainly a gimmick.
baby 2 days ago||
Folding phone user here, you will have one in the next 5 years for sure