Smartphone Makers Still Want To Make Foldables a Thing (arstechnica.com) 142
Every large smartphone maker except Apple is betting that "foldable" phones will help revive a lacklustre mobile market, despite the devices still largely failing to attract mainstream consumers. From a report: Foldables, which have a screen that opens like a book or compact mirror, barely exceed a 1 per cent market share of all smartphones sold globally almost five years after they were first introduced. But Samsung has doubled down on the product, investing heavily in marketing this year. In July, the Korean group released its 5G Galaxy Z series. The world's largest smartphone manufacturer points to estimates from Counterpoint Research that foldable devices may surpass a third of all smartphones costing more than $600 by 2027.
Other handset makers such as Motorola, China's Huawei and its spin-off Honor are also pinning their hopes on the product helping to revive a market that suffered its worst year for more than a decade. "This is the year people [in the industry] really dived in," said Ben Wood, an analyst at CCS Insight. "Everybody now is betting on this, except Apple." The iPhone-maker has yet to show any interest in the category, though patent filings suggest it may one day introduce an iPad that folds in half. Every other big smartphone maker has followed Samsung into the market, including Google's Pixel Fold and Chinese alternatives from Huawei, Oppo and Xiaomi.
Other handset makers such as Motorola, China's Huawei and its spin-off Honor are also pinning their hopes on the product helping to revive a market that suffered its worst year for more than a decade. "This is the year people [in the industry] really dived in," said Ben Wood, an analyst at CCS Insight. "Everybody now is betting on this, except Apple." The iPhone-maker has yet to show any interest in the category, though patent filings suggest it may one day introduce an iPad that folds in half. Every other big smartphone maker has followed Samsung into the market, including Google's Pixel Fold and Chinese alternatives from Huawei, Oppo and Xiaomi.
What a stupid metric (Score:5, Interesting)
1% of global sales? For a device that costs double the amount of a flagship model phone? NO FUCKING WAY! This *is* mainstream. It's a device for the 1%er, the kind of person who can blow $2000 on a foldable.
I want one, and I want to be able to buy it for $600
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Make it $1000 and it'll break right after the warranty expires or if you claim warranty you'll get denied on a technicality.
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Great. Now we get another photo orientation. Portrait, landscape, and now foldable square. Perhaps you can export photos and videos from the square format into either portrait OR landscape for all the different media sites that have a preferred orientation.
Re: What a stupid metric (Score:2)
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For the most part, camera sensors are square (or 4:3) and crop to "wide" aspect ratios.
A "foldable square" format would likely just get rid of the crop.
Re:What a stupid metric (Score:5, Interesting)
Foldables will not take off because they solved NONE of the problems prior generations of flip phones had:
- Fragile screen
- Fragile hinge
- Garbage getting caught in the screen when it closes, breaking the screen
- Sitting on the phone, or putting it in womens jeans breaks the phone and/or the hinge
There is literately nothing that a flip phone brings to the table that wasn't better done in the bar-shaped phones. If you wanted a bigger screen, just buy an iPad.
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If you wanted a bigger screen, just buy an iPad.
I think the problem these foldables are trying to solve is - "how do you fit an iPad into your pocket?"
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If you wanted a bigger screen, just buy an iPad.
I think the problem these foldables are trying to solve is - "how do you fit an iPad into your pocket?"
And in trying to do that they have failed hard. The Samsung Note already solved that problem. A 7.6" screen on the Z Fold is not that much bigger than my 6.8" Note 10+. My Samsung S8 Ultra tablet has a 14.6" screen. Giving me a 7.6" screen doesn't get me anywhere close to my tablet.
Perhaps make the Z Fold6 a 7.2" screen folded, which would be about a 9.7" screen unfolded. Nowhere near a large tablet, but pretty close to a 10.9 iPad. I'm still not sure I would like the thickness of the Z Fold, but that would
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Unfortunately the "solutions" so far work about as well as attempting to fold an iPad over the edge of a table.
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>- Fragile screen
Not really
>- Fragile hinge
Not really
>- Garbage getting caught in the screen when it closes, breaking the screen
Doesn't happen
>- Sitting on the phone, or putting it in womens jeans breaks the phone and/or the hinge
Doesn't happen
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Yep. This was true in 2001 already.
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They have solved those problems. Current gen ones from Samsung and Chinese manufacturers are robust.
Obviously they are never going to be as robust as your Nokia 3310, but plenty of people don't throw their expensive phone around like a dog toy.
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I'm inclined to agree.
I can see *rollable* screens having some serious potential, but nobody seems interested, maybe it's just too expensive? Give me a dry erase marker sized "candybar" phone that lets me pull out a an ipad-sized screen, and then they'd have something.
No hinges. No sharp folds in the screen. No need for extremely tight fits that make dirt a problem. And you could have it all gently roll up inside a titanium tube that would let busses drive over it harmlessly.
Stiffening it could be an in
Re: What a stupid metric (Score:2)
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Yeah, only far less bulky.
Loved that show, especially the early seasons.
Re: What a stupid metric (Score:2)
Re: What a stupid metric (Score:2)
Foldables will not take off because they solved NONE of the problems prior generations of flip phones had: - Fragile screen - Fragile hinge - Garbage getting caught in the screen when it closes, breaking the screen - Sitting on the phone, or putting it in womens jeans breaks the phone and/or the hinge
Nope. I'm on my 4th Z Flip. I had the original and I spent 5 weeks in the hospital with nurses causing it to fall off the tray over and over. The screen never cracked. The hinge remains in great shape. I never had an issue with stuff getting stuck between the fold and I keep the phone in my front pocket. With the fold, I can easily fit the phone in my front pocket.
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Foldables will not take off because they solved NONE of the problems prior generations of flip phones had: - Fragile screen
- Fragile hinge
- Garbage getting caught in the screen when it closes, breaking the screen
- Sitting on the phone, or putting it in womens jeans breaks the phone and/or the hinge
You forgot "Less space than a Nomad".
I noticed on a recent trip to Korea that the Samsung Flip is incredibly popular among women, precisely because it fits in their pockets, giving them a normal-sized phone that can doesn't have to be carried in a purse. And it doesn't break when they sit.
Personally, I've been using a Google Fold for a few months and I really like it. It is not fragile, the folded size is pretty much a normal phone form factor (unlike the Samsung Fold, which is oddly narrow), and the un
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Even when flip phones were all the range, I used a "bar" phone.
Why the fuck do I need my phone to fold? It's not a piece of laundry.
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So you can tell Scotty to beam you up, already
Re: What a stupid metric (Score:2)
Features are topped out. (Score:5, Insightful)
I've got an iPhone 13. The only reason I moved from the 11 was because my retired mother broke her phone. I could afford a new one. Her, not so much. I have not a single reason to upgrade, and haven't for years. It doesn't matter what you cram into it now, the only reason I would move again would be catastrophic physical damage, or the providers give up on 5g and LTE. Maybe one day if the battery gives up I'll reevaluate it against the cost of repair, but if I had to choose now I'd pick repair.
You gave me too good a device. You can't temp me anymore.
11 (Score:2)
Still using an iPhone 11 Pro, and see no real need to upgrade. I just wiped it and reinstalled everything when 17 came out and it's still plenty snappy. Battery life is still fine, too. 85% left on a phone that's pushing 5 years old isn't bad.
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The main reason I moved from a 11 to a 13 was because the 13 uses AES-256 while the 11 uses AES-128. After the iPhone 7, the only real fundamental earth-shattering feature we have had is some water resistance so the device isn't totally dead if it goes for a swim. Other than updated antennas, cameras, and a new gewgaw here and there, there isn't really anything truly enticing about what comes around.
Part of it is that companies can't really R&D much due to all the fallout from the patent wars, where d
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If tech advances to where AES 128 can be cracked, it'll obviously be via some non-brute force method (either quantum or fancy math) and that likely means AES 256 would succumb to that too in short order.
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Apparently the thinking is that quantum computers will turn AES256 into the same level of security as AES128 without quantum computers.
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The days of phones coming out with new "killer" features all the time are long over.
They'll be back in the dystopian future when they will actually kill people. :-)
I expect they'll make nice Christmas gifts.
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There are still major improvements with the cameras. Not every year, but Sony recently developed a new sensor that can capture two exposures at once, and the Pixel 8 Pro has it. The results are really, really good, a big step up. I've found I often don't need the "night sight" feature that stacks images over a few seconds, the standard mode captures a really nice image.
I'm still tempted by a Fuji x100v if they ever become available again, but for people who do photography with their phones (rather than just
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Indeed. The road to full commoditization has been mostly traveled. Hence they not try to "distinguish" their product by features that do not deliver value for money but look "flashy" and still work to trick those weak of mind.
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You gave me too good a device. You can't temp me anymore.
Okay, but can I tempt you into a trailing "t"? :-)
I'm on the same page. I rather like my Pixel 5a (purchased in 2021/09) and will keep it as long as I can. I had my previous phone, a Kyocera HydroVIBE from 2015-2021 (6y) and my first phone, a Qualcomm QCP-1900 from 1998-2015 (17y). My Qualcomm was originally on PrimeCo which was sold locally to nTelos, which was sold to Sprint, which stopped supporting the phone (I think it was the spectrum it used) and my Kyocera was on Ting/Sprint and ran KitKat whic
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Well, I haven't upgraded in almost 4 - Samsung note 10 lite.
Bought it only because my then old Samsung note 4 died when a colleague knocked it off the desk in a workshop and it landed in pieces two floors down - it lasted almost 6 years and it would probably be alive (and in use) today.
The only feature I need that the current phone doesn't have is support for the older mifare nfc tags.
Foldable is dumb (Score:5, Funny)
I bought a Galaxy Z Fold 4, which was great initially. However, a major issue surfaced with the screen protector. When I opened the phone, the screen protector peeled off along the crease, instantly killing the pixels in that area. This left me with a display marred by a 1/2" black line down the center. Samsung declined to cover this under warranty, rendering my device a partially-functional unit with a compromised display.
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It's almost like they are trying to find ways to make screens break faster. First it was curved edges which nobody wanted. Now it's this.
Re:Foldable is dumb (Score:5, Insightful)
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You're not alone - I like that idea too. Except I'd arrange it like a flip phone.
The problem with foldables is two-fold. First, there's the price. Second, because of the oft-dscussed issue with the screen along the fold... it's hard to imagine they'll ever completely solve the problem - so these devices will never be particularly durable. So not only do you have to spend $2000 on the phone, you have to be willing to spend that much all over again every 18 months.
Re: Foldable is dumb (Score:2)
I'll second that. You are not alone. The surface Duo phones are great for getting work done.
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When I opened the phone, the screen protector peeled off along the crease, instantly killing the pixels in that area. This left me with a display marred by a 1/2" black line down the center.
If only they had made a phone with two separate screens and a very narrow gap between them. I bet people wouldn't even notice after awhile. But then, there would be few reasons for people to replace them... /cynical
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Actually, as long as such a contraption worked in the same manner as a very ancient tech called "book", the gap would not matter, and I'd buy it.
I still have this bookmarked... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/te... [telegraph.co.uk]
It drives flexible screen tech forward (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't want one either.
But you can't deny it's def. driving foldable / wearable tech forward.
We always touted flexible screens as the future. Foldable phones is the start of this.
Now early adopters (those 1% with money) are buying and betatesting it for the rest of us, we can't see the point, but they think it's neat. I think it's neat too, but nothing I'd pay into the thousands of dollars for.
But they are really stretching things (literally) and they're getting increasingly better at it, the screens become even more flexible, more durable and by the latest tests by Jerryrigeverything - some of them seems near indestructable, he literally tore the entire screen off and it was still alive, pretty impressive.
The next thing that we need to invent (or at least make better) is flexible circuit boards with embedded circuits on them, flat, so flat in fact you can't tell if it's circuits or just the screen itself. You want smartphone functionality and acceleration on that? Sure - it will come, but it'll be some time before we can invent it so it can distribute the cooling and heat dissipation, and it will take some generations before we get there, but we WILL get there.
Your future device will most likely be some kind of "slap on" device, were you can literally just slap on your smartwatch or phone right on your wrist or arm, kinda like those flexible reflects you use when biking or walking around at night, they'll become something like that.
Stores already use e-ink displays in place of standard displays as price tags now, and it's already commonplace. We all thought that e-ink was dead, but it's everywhere.
E-ink is even becoming bigger than we thought, we aleady have 15hz displays now with full color, which means you can at least display animations on them. Oleds are becoming better, less burn-in and more durable and flexible than ever.
But it require babysteps and adopters with deep pockets.
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We always touted flexible screens as the future. Foldable phones is the start of this. Now early adopters (those 1% with money) are buying and betatesting it for the rest of us, we can't see the point, but they think it's neat. I think it's neat too, but nothing I'd pay into the thousands of dollars for.
I'm still happy with my Galaxy Note 20, does everything I need it to do. When it comes time to replace it though, the Z Fold is definitely on the list. A friend has one and I have to say it is pretty cool but not without its limitations as well. I'm fine with waiting till all the bugs are all worked out, and thanks in advance to the early adopters for working on that.
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E-ink is even becoming bigger than we thought, we aleady have 15hz displays now with full color, which means you can at least display animations on them.
Hmmm, where ?!? I've been dreaming of a color e-ink tablet to read comics for the past 20 years. And a laptop with an instantly switchable screen between a normal one and a color e-ink so I can develop in the garden would be neat.
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Well you're gonna be happy:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts... [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
They exist since 1 year ago, but they're still quite expensive.
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Recipe for Apple phone market success (Score:5, Funny)
1. Come up with crazy idea, expensive to develop and produce
2. Leak idea
3. Watch others attempt to rush feature to market and/or pour billions into it
4. Retain 10x profitability per handset
5. Profit. (Literally)
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Their latest idea seems to be...titanium. Do you suppose people will stop covering it up with phone cases? How else will people know that they have the new *titanium* phone???
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Let's see how that works with their VR headset. It wouldn't be the first Apple product to bomb.
There are limits to how expensive/crap something can be, even for Apple.
This (Score:2)
Very much this.
However, you forgot to include the MP3 player and the smartphone itself in your list.
It's just so... unnecessary (Score:2, Troll)
If I needed my phone to fold so badly, I'd be fine with two separate screens and a thin hinge.
If I wanted crazy tech that's not really necessary, I'd rather have my phone split into a QWERTY keyboard with optical trackball and a nice set of AR glasses that'll give me whatever size virtual display I might desire.
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If I needed my phone to fold so badly, I'd be fine with two separate screens and a thin hinge.
I want my phone to fold to make it reasonably small in size. The Samsung foldables are already somewhat too big for my taste. And I, too, would be perfectly happy with two separate screens and a thin hinge. That would be so much more reasonable than all the trouble with the "bending" displays.
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If I needed my phone to fold so badly, I'd be fine with two separate screens and a thin hinge.,/EM>
Flip phone. You're thinking of a flip phone. They already exist.
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Flip phone. You're thinking of a flip phone. They already exist.
Name one contemporary phone model that comes with two rigid screens which are used as one screen when opened...
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They are just desperately trying to be different. That they go for this stupid idea (at the current stage of tech) just means that smartphones pretty mich deliver very similar value these days.
You've got to (Score:5, Funny)
know when to hold 'em
Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run
Why buy a foldable (Score:2)
Only to be told:
You're holding it wrong
You're folding it wrong
You're walking it wrong
You're storing it wrong.
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Just one fold? (Score:3)
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I think you're onto something here! Imagine, a phone that unfolds to the size of a poster board!
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I think you're onto something here! Imagine, a phone that unfolds to the size of a poster board!
It will be called the seven fold phone.
3D tvs anyone? (Score:2)
Remember when the industry was trying to force that down our throats?
In retrospect, I'd rather have the option of 3D tech and dumb screens than the "smart" crap everywhere today.
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With 3D TVs, it was either sit in a very narrow spot or deal with putting glasses on my glasses.
Folding folds are amazing (Score:2)
The best one out there is the OnePlus Open. I have the ZFold 5 .. but after seeing the OnePlus Open ... I am seriously trying to be careless with the Z Fold so I can have an excuse to import the OnePlus Open. My only gripe with the Z Fold is that it needs to be wider so that it is more usable folded. 90% of the time I use my ZFold folded -- but it's great for the 10% usage open. Foldables with the correct aspect ratio (which OnePlus has nailed) would sell like crazy if they were cheap.
Apple is betting on...titanium (Score:2)
By contrast, folding phones seem rather interesting!
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Seems titanium is a pretty safe bet then.
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Well of course! It's safe, and boring. Titanium has absolutely zero value to a smartphone or watch in terms of engineering, it's nothing more than a gimmick. But they are certainly advertising the heck out of it.
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Thank you for rephrasing my original point. This is pretty much what I'm getting at...there really isn't much innovation these days in phone technology, the phone makers are really scraping the bottom of the barrel for reasons to get people to pay for an upgrade. Yet for some reason I don't understand, people still ARE paying for those upgrades.
My old flip (Score:2)
So, my 2003 flip-phone is now returning to being leading edge?
High cost, high gamble (Score:5, Informative)
Last step before full commoditization (Score:2)
Stupid, excessively expensive "features" that do not make sense and do not deliver reasonable worth for money. Next step is that products become mostly indistinguishable. In fact, that has already happened. a $100 Motorola, for example, pretty much delivers already 90% of what a "high-end" smartphone does in terms of actual usefulness.
All cellphones can be folded in two (Score:2)
At least once.
My dream phone (Score:2)
1. Physical buttons
2. Small form factor, flat not chunky
3. Enough RAM to be able to browse the web (32GB should do it)
4. Enough CPU for the interface not to be laggy (16 2.5ghz cores should do it)
5. Ability to tether over wifi
6. Very strong bluetooth signal
7. A MicroSD card slot
8. Enough bands to let me travel and still get fast speeds
9. Enough battery to last an 8-hour hike tracking my GPS location
10. Not die if it gets splashed when ocean kayaking
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Oh I forgot one of the most important things:
11. A body that is actually grippy and not made of glass / doesn't need a case to protect it
Feature-complete (Score:5, Insightful)
Smartphones are, right now, pretty much feature-complete. Good screen quality and brightness, uses the entire surface area, reliable touch detection, good camera, sufficient horsepower for most applications (short of AI), sufficient memory and storage for most applications, and the form factor's hit the point where you can't make it bigger without exceeding the viable size for something people treat like a phone. Bad news for the hardware makers because that means the hardware's become a commodity and between Google and Apple the software's sufficiently locked-up that there's not a lot to be done there without trying to create an entirely new OS and application ecosystem from scratch.
The "foldable" thing is the hardware makers trying to exploit the only path they've got left to them: increasing the screen size without changing the not-in-use form factor. The materials tech isn't there yet to do it reliably, on top of which I think the screen sizes they're trying for fit into the sour spot of being too big for what people want in a phone-type device and too small to use as a tablet. Combine with a premium price and you have a recipe for a marketing disaster.
Re:Feature-complete (Score:5, Interesting)
"Foldable" to smartphones is very much what "3D" was to TVs - an attempt to encourage owners of commodity products to upgrade by adding an at-best niche "feature" and touting as the next big thing. See also "AI."
Tried to buy a 3D-TV lately?
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Stop trying to make "fetch" happen! (Score:2)
It's not going to happen! [youtube.com]
WHY? (Score:2)
useless, but not pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a classic case of a solution in search of a problem.
But that doesn't mean it's a waste of effort. I'm pretty sure that foldable phones won't ever be a thing. But the tech developed for it will find applications elsewhere. There's plenty of scenarios where a foldable, bendable or otherwise flexible screen would be a very useful. If other parts of the phone can become bendable as well we might end up with smartphones that fit into our pockets better and don't break when we sit on them.
Meh (Score:2)
I don't want one. My wife has had one for awhile now though.
She doesn't care about fashion; she just literally wants a good phone that isn't the size of a small tablet (and isn't an ancient Apple).
(And no, not some niche phone that I could deal with, but some major, supported model.)
It ended up being not "oh yay, a foldable!" but rather "dang, guess I need to get a foldable".
Yes, the screen (or outer screen, or whatever) issues with going bad at the fold suck, but are manageable. Life's full of tradeoff
Deals (Score:2)
Physical Keyboard (Score:2)
If this feature of questionable utility can be considered successful enough to double down on with only 1% of sales, imagine how successful a physical keyboard would be.
Make them worth the while (Score:2)
I know why I'm waiting (Score:2)
I've been seeing tech demos of foldable screens for a decade or two, and the products with foldable screens just don't feel ready to me. A key thing about a phone is that it has to be reliable, and screen folding in current designs feel way too likely to break, with lots of little hinges and of course the screen folding in a sharp bend. I'm waiting to see how they hold out long-term in the field.
The one design that I liked in prototypes that's not made it into production is like a scroll, so instead of havi
A solution looking for a problem (Score:2)
I see where companies want to do this. Flip phones are making a comeback, and foldables are seen as a way to continue the smartphone market while taking advantage of this trend
The problem appears to be that manufacturers don't understand WHY flip phones are making a comeback.
Neat idea (Score:2)
But one that would open big enough to read comfortably on. Phone is too narrow and the tablet is a pain to carry around.
Wrong direction (Score:2)
Foldables (Score:2)
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Could always have a protective cover over them, like a projector screen. Picture a titanium tube "candybar phone", with only a minimal "eWatch" screen, if that. Then you pull a full-sized tablet out of the side.
Re:no Rollables yet ? (Score:5, Funny)
Well, we have crumpleables now. The kind that's so thin that you have to buy a casing twice as thick so you don't accidentally crumple them up in your pocket because everyone apparently wants incredibly thin phones.
Only problem left to be solved is that they should still work aftercrumpling them up.
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100% false. I own a Z Fold and that has never happened. I am also not in the habit of digging up a handful of sand and putting it in my pocket periodically, so your experience may vary?
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The SO has one of these folds (inherited, so to speak) and she's in the habit of putting sand in her pockets (inevitable with our dogs).
It has never happened to her either, I just checked.
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Umm, that was with the initial first version when people thought the top layer was removable.
Re: The smell of desperation (Score:2)
If the manufacturers actually want to sell more devices, I have a free idea for them. Lower the prices. The manufacturers already have admitted that the flagship phones cost so much just because they can get people to pay that much. Yet at the same time they complain about stagnant market. How dumb are they if they cannot connect the dots?
Also, if they just sell the same product with slightly tweaked exterior and a couple of additional software features, and have slightly faster CPU that is slowed down to t