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WWDC 2026: Apple is Folding

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Re: WWDC 2026: Apple is Folding

#81

Post by hbn »

wat10000 wrote: post #64
tom1337 wrote: post #39

I don't think I get foldable phones. When is the extra space necessary? I mean most of them turn from a somewhat 9:16 aspect ratio to 1:1. You don't earn anything in space to consume media content. The only real improvement might be for multitasking?

Multitasking would be huge. One reason I hate doing anything "real" on my phone is because I can't see more than one thing at a time.

I mean you can see more at once but now your typing experience is worse. I have an iPad and it's by far my least productive device unless it's connected to a physical keyboard. Typing on a giant touchscreen is so much more tedious than my phone's screen.

Re: WWDC 2026: Apple is Folding

#82

Post by rjrjrjrj »

hatsix wrote: post #23
abirch wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple hasn't "invented" most things, from the personal computer, MP3 Player, or smart phone. They tend to revolutionize the things by making them work extremely well.

if by 'revolutionize', you mean 'let everybody else spend time, effort and money developing the idea, and once they've proven the market they buy an interesting company in the space with tons of patents, shut down everything they'd done before and make their interesting and take credit for the revolution, meanwhile, their new presence in the area mutes actual innovation, because they use all of the oxygen in the room…

This take is completely divorced from reality.

Re: WWDC 2026: Apple is Folding

#83

Post by nozzlegear »

hatsix wrote: post #23
abirch wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple hasn't "invented" most things, from the personal computer, MP3 Player, or smart phone. They tend to revolutionize the things by making them work extremely well.

if by 'revolutionize', you mean 'let everybody else spend time, effort and money developing the idea, and once they've proven the market they buy an interesting company in the space with tons of patents, shut down everything they'd done before and make their interesting and take credit for the revolution, meanwhile, their new presence in the area mutes actual innovation, because they use all of the oxygen in the room…

That's obviously not what they mean.

Re: WWDC 2026: Apple is Folding

#84

Post by azan_ »

Aperocky wrote: post #66

I think discussion here are missing that most people do not own a PC/laptop and if they do barely ever opens one, and not because they can't afford it, but it just didn't fit into their daily lives. This is obviously entirely different from the HN crowd. And in that case, a folding phone is huge! Having played with one that my parent use, it's such an upgrade for reading/scrolling experience. When we all are spending…

Yeah, to support this point I'd also like to point that mobile gaming is larger market than both PC and console gaming.

Re: WWDC 2026: Apple is Folding

#85

Post by Jeremy1026 »

deadbabe wrote: post #76
game_the0ry wrote: post #40

Not a fan of foldables, if I am honest. Just a personal opinion. I do not like the it feels in the pocket bc the device needs to double its thickness when folding over. When a mobile device manufacturer (samsung, hauwei, now apple) makes a foldable, I get the impression they're running out of ideas with the "slate" form factor and are trying to stimulate sales. Personally, I would want that R&D spend and innovation t…

I want a foldable to make the device smaller in my pocket. Like an iPhone Air that could fold in half like a fliphone.

That is likely what it will be. The iPhone Air was probably just a test to see if all the super-thin components could work. Now they'll throw a hinge in the middle and a screen on the back. It'll end up being 2 or 3mm thicker, because of the bonus screen.

Re: WWDC 2026: Apple is Folding

#86

Post by jayd16 »

game_the0ry wrote: post #40

Not a fan of foldables, if I am honest. Just a personal opinion. I do not like the it feels in the pocket bc the device needs to double its thickness when folding over. When a mobile device manufacturer (samsung, hauwei, now apple) makes a foldable, I get the impression they're running out of ideas with the "slate" form factor and are trying to stimulate sales. Personally, I would want that R&D spend and innovation t…

The new Samsung fold 7s while folded are less than a mm thicker than an iPhone 17.

Re: WWDC 2026: Apple is Folding

#87

Post by rjrjrjrj »

MrDunham wrote: post #21
brk wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

15 years ago, I would agree that Apple might not have been willing to accept those kinds of issues. I'm not sure about the Apple of today. That is not a slight against any Apple leadership, but I do feel that, for a variety of reasons, the level of minimum QC has notched back a bit in the pursuit of marketshare.

The iPhone camera bump is the "jumped the shark" moment for me when Apple went from unwilling to accept that level of quality to "I'm not sure... they might". Speculative to be sure, but I believe that if Jobs was alive we'd have a paper thin camera sensor because the bump would have been a nonstarter. Same regarding your comment... I agree, the minimum QC does feel like it notched back a bit.

I disagree. The camera bump was functional pragmatism winning out over Jony Ive's increasingly form-driven ideals.

Even the Jobs Reality Distortion Field couldn't alter physics.

Re: WWDC 2026: Apple is Folding

#88

Post by cavemandaveman »

bluescrn wrote: post #80
game_the0ry wrote: post #40

Not a fan of foldables, if I am honest. Just a personal opinion. I do not like the it feels in the pocket bc the device needs to double its thickness when folding over. When a mobile device manufacturer (samsung, hauwei, now apple) makes a foldable, I get the impression they're running out of ideas with the "slate" form factor and are trying to stimulate sales. Personally, I would want that R&D spend and innovation t…

The purpose of a foldable is to reduce the lifespan of a device, and therefore sell more devices

Apple's MO has never been to make junk that breaks. They're as valuable as they are largely because of their reputation for high quality products.

Re: WWDC 2026: Apple is Folding

#89

Post by hbn »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #79
ale wrote: post #52

Besides the new form factor, resizable apps are also meant to further bridge the gap between macOS and iOS right?

More than that, it forces iPhone-only devs to get with the program and make their apps usable on larger screens too. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if next year they dissolve the iPhone/iPad distinction on the App Store altogether and maybe even remove the Catalyst toggle on the Mac App Store. If you make an iOS app, it’s also a full fledged iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS app too. I certainly wouldn’t mind. On my Mac th…

> I wouldn’t be surprised at all if next year they dissolve the iPhone/iPad distinction on the App Store altogether

I hadn't thought about it but it makes sense and it makes me wonder how far this would reach throughout the rest of the OS. If the iPhone can fold out into an iPad Mini, will it get the rest of the iPadOS features? The iPad used to run iOS but they rebranded the version that runs on iPad to iPadOS to distinguish that it has a handful of unique features only for big screens, mainly pertaining to multitasking. But if the line is being blurred and iPhones will have big screens with multitasking, will they go back to just calling it iOS on all mobile devices?

Re: WWDC 2026: Apple is Folding

#90

Post by ebiester »

game_the0ry wrote: post #40

Not a fan of foldables, if I am honest. Just a personal opinion. I do not like the it feels in the pocket bc the device needs to double its thickness when folding over. When a mobile device manufacturer (samsung, hauwei, now apple) makes a foldable, I get the impression they're running out of ideas with the "slate" form factor and are trying to stimulate sales. Personally, I would want that R&D spend and innovation t…

Or, alternatively, they feel like they finally cracked the code and think they can do it better. That's when Apple finally enters a market.

Consider how much money they put in to building a car to cancel it when they decided they couldn't, in fact, do it better. I'm sure there are hundreds - maybe thousands - of failed prototypes along the way.

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