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WWDC 2026: Apple is Folding
- nsbk 4mo agoPeak Apple "innovation" incoming!
- nemomarx 4mo agoHey, if they can get the hinge working better it might improve the category at least. You'd expect Apple to do well at manufacturing for that kinda stuff
- abirch 4mo agoApple 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.
- hatsix 4mo agoif 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'... sure, yeah, they do that... but the revolution was coming whether Apple participated or not. Apple is great at winning capitalism.
- rjrjrjrj 4mo agoThis take is completely divorced from reality.
- nozzlegear 4mo agoThat's obviously not what they mean.
- hbn 4mo agoBefore Apple Silicon, who was making equivalent laptops? Highly competitive performance, great battery life, instant wake from sleep, pristine build quality, etc. Forget before Apple Silicon, who's making an equivalent laptop now?
- azan_ 4mo ago> Apple is great at winning capitalism. Exactly, they deliver products that are better than their competition and thanks to that they got extremely rich. It's a great example of capitalism working as intended.
- nimbius 4mo ago"hey guys remember that screen technology that came out seven years ago and has had plenty of time to mature? Well our 65 year old CEO just discovered it and has found a way to make it stratospherically more expensive than its ever been before!"
- rafram 4mo agoCurrent foldables are fragile, require a built-in plastic screen protector, and have a visible crease. Apple is very unlikely to be willing to accept those compromises. We'll see, but I think their entry into the field will change things.
- brk 4mo ago15 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.
- MrDunham 4mo agoThe 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.
- rjrjrjrj 4mo agoI 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.
- rafram 4mo agoSure this isn't just nostalgia / rose-tinted glasses speaking? In the 2010s, Apple shipped MacBooks with GPUs that fried themselves to death, and iPhones that bent in your pocket and lost cell signal if you held them wrong. Today's Apple does have some software quality issues, but their hardware is the best it's ever been.
- brk 4mo ago
- realusername 4mo agoIs that blurry mess on the video seriously how resizing works on iOS or is it just a POC made by some dev?
- argsnd 4mo agoThat is how window resizing on iOS 27 apps streamed to macOS 27 works right now in the first beta, I reckon it won't change.
- BugsJustFindMe 4mo agoIt gives me a headache. How could anyone look at it and think it doesn't need to change?
- jitl 4mo agocurrent view transition stack on ios was built for static transition between two well know layouts, like portrait to landscape rotation change. i would like live reflow too but i suspect 99% of existing apps aren’t ready to reflow at 120hz when they’ve been written around tween(start layout, end layout) style for decades
- csande17 4mo agoUIKit apps can already resize fluidly on Mac Catalyst and iPadOS. I suspect the issue here is more related to the video encoding / streaming used for iPhone Mirroring.
- csande17 4mo agoApple has used this kind of blurry resizing animation in the past. For example, circa macOS 10.14 Mojave resizing windows in Split View would have the same effect: https://youtu.be/KDDMUxBtnkI https://youtu.be/KDDMUxBtnkI
- realusername 4mo agoWow seriously? To me it looks like a throwback to Windows 95 lightweight settings or some lightweight WM of the early 2000s like Fluxbox/OpenBox which didn't implement proper resizing to save on resources.
- drcongo 4mo agoI can't imagine they'd release a crappy folding thing like the Samsung, I think it's more likely to be effectively dual-screen that can be unfurled into something where the two screens are side by side.
- csande17 4mo agoIt would be very funny if Apple's next innovative flagship product is a Surface Duo
- whywhywhywhy 4mo ago> a crappy folding thing like the Samsung This is the only phone I've seen people move away from iPhone to get, I know at least 3 women who switched from iPhone to android to get the folding clamshell Samsung and all love it.
- ge96 4mo agoThe triple folding phone is interesting to me but I still am not at the point where I feel comfortable having a $2K phone. Where you can get a Motorolla with 12GB of RAM for $80 I mention RAM as Android with 4GB of ram is almost unusable.
- jerf 4mo agoAre you citing subsidized prices, or used prices? I can only find $80 Motorolas used or locked, e.g.: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D323V72S https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D323V72S and that's 4GB 12GB seems to get up into $200+, and that's still a lot of "renewed" listings. You can find quirky little loss-leader deals here and there sometimes but I don't think you're getting 12GB of RAM for $80 on a routine basis.
- ge96 4mo agoI was listening to this ep/podcast on Hackaday about a 12GB $50 Motorola phone https://hackaday.com/2026/05/26/linux-on-android-provides-inexpensive-powerful-computing/ https://hackaday.com/2026/05/26/linux-on-android-provides-in... But yeah they're usually carrier locked, I personally use Verizon prepaid and my 8GB Motorola phone is above $80 but not $600 either, it's $200 https://www.verizon.com/smartphones/motorola-moto-g-power-2025-prepaid/ https://www.verizon.com/smartphones/motorola-moto-g-power-20... Anyway it's certainly not the same phone as a flagship folding phone but for daily everyday needs more than adequate, I even was able to run multiple gig apps eg. DoorDash/Uber Eats on the 8GB model. I will say what people consider "worth the money" varies since I bought a $1,000.00 radar detector and it's like who buys that... Might be ram boost that's bumping from 8 to 12GB
- baal80spam 4mo agoHoly mother of clickbait titles.
- bobwaycott 4mo agoAgreed. The content is not what I was expecting to read.
- swiftcoder 4mo agoIt's a pretty good homographic pun, honestly
- m463 4mo agoI think OP might want to change title of article: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- rjh29 4mo agoI've gone all the way around and came back. The Samsung Fold was awesome and convenient. But carrying an ipad mini and a phone is not that big a deal. It's quite nice that the ipad mini does not have whatsapp or SMS plugged into it, so I can use it exclusively for reading books or playing music. The cost of the iPad Mini + my phone was like $600 and the folds - even the 6th gen and above - are super unreliable, so right now that seems like the best play.
- SecretDreams 4mo ago> It's quite nice that the ipad mini does not have whatsapp or SMS plugged into it, so I can use it exclusively for reading books or playing music. Both a phone and a tablet can come with WhatsApp, it's a user choice whether they are there and the frequency of checking them. Global muting the apps is also an option. I understand your point, but it is a point mitigated by user intervention. Now, if we want to say reading on a bigger screen than a phone is a better user experience, I'm on board with that.
- wolvoleo 4mo agoIt depends I guess. I really like my foldable. Got it for 500€ on a special deal. It's really nice to have a tablet always with you. I live in a warm country so I don't usually wear a coat or a big bag. Also, on android there's really no good small tablets. They're all 10" and bigger.
- afavour 4mo ago> It's quite nice that the ipad mini does not have whatsapp or SMS plugged into it, so I can use it exclusively for reading books or playing music. Eh, iOS has profiles that let you disable whatever apps you wish to. Better than a whole other piece of hardware, IMO
- stronglikedan 4mo ago> But carrying an ipad mini and a phone is not that big a deal. For you maybe, but for most it is, or we'd all be doing it.
- 4mo ago
- stevenhubertron 4mo agoFor me at least the screen size isn’t the limiting factor the lack of a keyboard is. I don’t know why I’d choose this device over a Neo or Air + non-folding phone.
- xattt 4mo agoMentions of the resizable iOS apps seem to signal a desktop dock mode, which ties into your concern. We know Apple is bringing a folding iPhone through manufacturing leaks. A desktop mode is less likely to be leaked, since it would be mostly software and (a lot) less reliant on third parties.
- HumblyTossed 4mo ago> a desktop dock mode This needs to come to ALL iPhones. You plug in a usb c cable to your monitor and bang, iPad Neo. But Apple being Apple will software block it...
- noworriesnate 4mo agoI doubt it (though I would love this as well). FTA: > A third discovery was arguably more specific: a new system key that returns the total count of *built-in* displays on a device (emphasis added)
- dymk 4mo agoYou can pair a Bluetooth keyboard to any iPhone or iPad. This, for instance, combines a battery and compact physical kb https://www.clicks.tech/products/powerkeyboard https://www.clicks.tech/products/powerkeyboard
- echelon 4mo ago> This is the PSOTU’s message, which states clearly and plainly: stop thinking about creating software for a specific piece of hardware. Design software to be adaptable across a range of screen sizes and aspect ratios. I remember so many Apple developers saying this was why Apple was better than Android. The HN archives are full of such comments. Not that I care for either company, as they both lord over our lives and limit our freedoms.
- jitl 4mo agoi’ve been waiting a few years for iphone fold, im excited that they’re releasing it this year. its both iphone mini (yay!! mini iphone again) and ipad mini (yay!! hueg screen for bedtime youtube) in one device presumably with a cpu powerful enough to run cyberpunk 2077. what a world :)
- mohsen1 4mo agoA foldable iPhone will definitely solve one of the biggest problems at Apple. Foldable phones won't last 5-10 years. I can see Apple making all iPhone offerings foldable down the road
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- Bud 4mo ago[dead]
- hbn 4mo agoAre they really having any issue getting people to upgrade? At least here in Canada, carriers harass everyone to upgrade with deals where you can get a new phone for $0 once your contract is up to keep you renewing your contract. My non-techie parents pretty much always get the latest non-Pro iPhone every couple years because their carrier calls them and practically begs them to take a new phone. It's extremely rare to see anyone with a phone older than like 4 years.
- dymk 4mo agoDo you actually know how many people are holding onto their iPhones for 5 to 10 years? I would bet it’s not that many.
- tom1337 4mo agoI 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?
- pasc1878 4mo agoYou get more to see. Maps are too narrow on phones. Books also are easier to read.
- layer8 4mo agoThe foldable iPhone will have an aspect ratio very close to 3:2 for the outer display (like the original iPhone) and of 1.41:1 (between 3:2 and 4:3) for the inner display (similar to an iPad).
- wat10000 4mo agoMultitasking 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.
- hbn 4mo agoI 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.
- wat10000 4mo agoIt's not perfect, but there are plenty of things I do where I'm not typing very much, but I am swapping back and forth between apps or web pages quite a bit.
- paradox460 4mo agoRunning two full size apps at once is pretty nice. Text conversation and website, things like that. Or copying and pasting credentials out of a password manager
- game_the0ry 4mo agoNot 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 to go to more sustainable materials, longer lasting devices, and easily repairable parts to extend the devices useful life.
- Jnr 4mo agoPerhaps Apple is also running out of ideas.
- skywhopper 4mo agoTo be fair, they ran out of ideas in 2010, if not before.
- microtonal 4mo agoApple Watch and AirPods were certainly category-defining products, some people would also argue that the iPad was. So 2010 or before is certainly not fair.
- alwillis 4mo agoThe MacBook Neo is a new idea. It’s also a device most Apple skeptics didn’t think was possible.
- Jnr 4mo agoNothing new about it. It is a thin laptop, similar to Macbook Air which they have had for many many years.
- alwillis 4mo ago> Nothing new about it. Besides starting at $599 (the Air has mostly been a $999 product; occasionally selling at $799 at Costco), coming in 4 bright colors with matching keyboards, using an A series chip for the first time in a Mac, containing 90% recycled aluminum (the most of any Apple product) and breaking all Mac laptop sales records, there's nothing new about it. /s
- HumblyTossed 4mo agoI wonder how they'll address the crease. My guess is one of two ways. Not address it at all. Or tell you that you don't see what you really see.
- CamelCaseName 4mo agoHuawei's crease is virtually invisible.
- groundzeros2015 4mo agoDon’t you think that’s the first thing they would look at before green light?
- layer8 4mo agoThey'll likely use what Samsung showcased at CES in January (https://www.sammobile.com/news/samsung-crease-less-foldable-oled-panel-showcased-z-fold-8/ https://www.sammobile.com/news/samsung-crease-less-foldable-...), or something very close to it.
- nozzlegear 4mo ago> Or tell you that you don't see what you really see. ?
- MontagFTB 4mo agoiPhone Dynamic Crease (tm)
- hbn 4mo agoWhy would they bring attention to it at all? What company has ever highlighted the crease in their foldable for any reason other than to say it's improved from the previous year?
- tromp 4mo agoI think Oppo is the first to visibly eliminate the crease with their Find N6. https://www.pcmag.com/news/i-tried-oppos-latest-foldable-phone-and-its-crease-is-practically-impossible https://www.pcmag.com/news/i-tried-oppos-latest-foldable-pho...
- CamelCaseName 4mo agoHow timely, I'm writing this from a Pixel 10 Pro Fold I bought in January. Last night I opened it to find the inside screen having dead pixels in the center by the bend. I love foldable phones. I use it all the time in both modes, but now I'm currently procrastinating looking up my best buy warranty plan specifics. For a small percentage of mobile superusers, I really do believe foldables are the future. Having the ability to use desktop mode by default, or multitask, is huge.
- ale 4mo agoBesides the new form factor, resizable apps are also meant to further bridge the gap between macOS and iOS right?
- nozzlegear 4mo agoI'd guess that they're meant to bridge the gap between iOS and iPadOS, if anything.
- cosmic_cheese 4mo agoMore 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 there are some needlessly heavy electron apps I’d swap out for their iOS counterparts in a heartbeat if that were possible, as well as some games that would run fine on macOS but their devs don’t tick the checkbox for unclear reasons.
- hbn 4mo ago> 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?
- cosmic_cheese 4mo agoI think they’re going to continue to make some features device-specific. They probably want to position the foldable iPhone as a midway compromise device rather than a full iPad and flagship iPhone replacement, targeting customers who prefer breadth over depth and capability when it comes to features.
- harshit119 4mo agoThis will be really cool. iPhone really need change. All versions have same form factor for so long now
- markstos 4mo ago"Please do a bunch of work to support a folding phone model only a few people will be able to afford"
- azan_ 4mo agoI'm 100% certain it will sell out at the release and you will have to wait few months to get it. I don't know where people get the idea that only few people will be able to afford that phone.
- gyomu 4mo agoA bit fallacious because if you've been supporting the proper size classes API and not hardcoding assumptions about windows/orientation/etc. (as Apple has been telling you to do every WWDC for like 10 years now), there's basically 0 work to do.
- ChrisArchitect 4mo agoCan we update the title for a bit more clarity? Maybe like WWDC 2026: Platform sample app hints at future foldable
- nilslindemann 4mo agoWWDC = Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference.
- Aperocky 4mo agoI 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 so much time on the phone (that's a separate discussion, but it is the reality).
- azan_ 4mo agoYeah, to support this point I'd also like to point that mobile gaming is larger market than both PC and console gaming.
- harrouet 4mo agoEspecially in asian countries where PC penetration is lower.
- kqp 4mo agoTo be fair, where this applies is specific countries outside the US, not just outside tech. Very few Americans own a smartphone and not a computer, and they are mostly poor and not in the market for an ultra-luxury phone. You’re describing affluent counties that became so recently, like China, South Korea, and Japan, and indeed that’s where foldables are currently doing well.
- duxup 4mo agoWhat's huge about it for someone who doesn't own a PC laptop? Every example I've seen or tried using a fold-able was just a regular smartphone with a screen that displayed apps that looked like the app doesn't fit on the phone very well. The few that did fit didn't seem to provide any real advantage. That and the fold-able users I know all run into reliability issues with screens breaking over time.
- arikrahman 4mo agoWith my foldable, I find that I hardly use the full display and just use the main screen.
- kn100 4mo agoI've been dailying a pixel fold 9 pro for a while now and love the thing. Seeing Apple finally join in is exciting as heck. I wouldn't hold your breath for a non visible crease though, nor for it to necessarily be class leading in its screen tech. I doubt any of it matters though, the Pixel Folds aren't exactly class leading in these regards either and the fold is just not a concern at all once you're using it. it's practically invisible from head on, and the "plastic screen protector" worries are really not an issue either. The durability of the inner screen is actually much better than you'd expect since it spends most of its pocketed life protected from external scratches. Mines still in great shape, even though I do not use a case nor any other form of protector. Where apple has a significant opportunity here is the software side though. Google unfortunately doesn't seem to be too interested in exploring UI concepts with the Fold, leaving that to OnePlus and Samsung, both of which have imo better multitasking experiences than the Pixel Fold. Apple making an iPhone that becomes an iPad would probably be enough for them to win significant marketshare, but I hope they use this opportunity to do some interesting things with UI beyond what the iPad can do.
- encom 4mo ago>pixel >I do not use a case I have a Pixel 8a, and I have to use a case for it, because it appears to be designed to be as slippery as possible. Every edge is round and there's nothing to grip - it feels like an aluminium/glass bar of wet soap.
- paradox460 4mo agoRecently went from an 8 to a 10 pro fold The 10 feels like it should be more slippery, but for some reason, it isn't. It stays stuck in your hand like glue, despite the back feeling like another glass screen. Something special in is coating
- rtkwe 4mo agoInteresting. That's been one of my main issues with my normal 8 Pro. Sometimes I'm tempted to go caseless but the damn thing is so slick.
- ARandomerDude 4mo ago> Starting price reportedly around $2,000. I'll guess it won't be a Vision Pro level disaster, but most people will skip this device unless the price drops substantially.
- p_j_w 4mo agoThat’s the same MSRP as the Samsung foldable.
- flyingshelf 4mo agoThat's not exactly flying off the shelves. To be honest I'm not even sure if Samsung is making any money on the entire foldable lineup.
- testing22321 4mo agoI’m old enough to remember when everyone said the original iPhone would flop because it was too expensive…
- internet2000 4mo agoIt'll be backordered for moooonths. They won't be able to make enough to meet the demand it'll get.
- dymk 4mo agoA lot of people said the same thing about Vision Pro. The only way to actually know is to wait.
- pnw 4mo agoReally intrigued to see what Apple's design chops brings to this form factor. I'd love more screen real estate so I can travel without a damn laptop. The big question is how thick will it be?
- Ile09 4mo agoThe software opportunity is what's interesting. Apple making an iPhone that becomes an iPad could finally make multitasking on mobile actually work. Hardware is table stakes, the UI decisions are what will matter.
- JKCalhoun 4mo agoI instead see these sort of things (add the AppleVision Pro as well) as Apple feeling obliged to respond to "the public" (shareholders?). "Samsung has this cool foldable phone—they seem to be taking the design mantle away from Apple these days." "I hear this VR thing is the future of computing. Why isn't Apple in this space?" I suspect even in the Jobs-era you might point to the iPad as Apple being pressured into responding with a product in the tablet space. The Apple Watch a reaction to the Pebble?
- chrisco255 4mo ago> I hear this VR thing is the future of computing. Why isn't Apple in this space? Apple released the Vision Pro, which is AR
- nl 4mo agoI think that's the point the OP is making...
- sunnybeetroot 4mo agoIt is MR, it supports both.
- benoau 4mo agoOnce the little square iPod Nano existed a watch was inevitable - https://www.kickstarter.com/blog/a-new-era-for-design https://www.kickstarter.com/blog/a-new-era-for-design
- manoDev 4mo agoI don't believe it's really that, but the fact that Apple 1) is profitable 2) holds a lot of cash, and 3) has a proven capability to execute new products. So by not attempting to enter market niches, they could be potentially leaving a lot of money on the table, while the downside of the product failing to get traction doesn't really kill them.
- phreack 4mo agoSeeing this literally after my foldable full on broke through the axle after not even half a year makes me concerned for Apple
- crimsontech 4mo agoAn apple foldable phone would be the first phone I bought apple care for.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- wseadowntown 4mo ago[dead]
- internet2000 4mo agoI love the little showmanship touches Apple does like this. Seeing a trillion dollar company going "wink wink nudge nudge" is just funny.
- nerdjon 4mo agoI am not fully convinced that a foldable is really going to be something that most will want, but I think it could find its niche. Given that from another article it seems that in the simulator it is using the iPad view it could be useful for some people. Though, I have yet to find myself in a situation that I wanted to use an iPad and I was not already in a position to be carrying one. I use mine for work and I am already carrying a laptop, throwing in an iPad is a very small addition to my bag. Any time I have just been out, was never a situation I felt like I needed something like an iPad. Throw in that this looks like it will be the size of a Mini vs the 13" pro that I use now, it puts it in an awkward position. And I could justify the rumored $2k cost to replace 2 devices that cost more than that combined. It will be interesting to see how it does in practice, but also what it does to the separation of iOS and iPadOS.
- w10-1 4mo agoEveryone I know over 70 would love something that works like a phone when folded but like a tablet unfolded -- big enough for text to be big, small enough to carry, and without fiddly interface -- and at a reasonable price for those anchored in 1980 prices. (If those under 17 got attached to foldables, it would be an enduring franchise.) For those of us in between, I'd love it if my foldable when unfolded were finally the OS of choice - iPadOS or iOS or even macOS. It would be the hub for hub-and-spoke devices... It's an impossible ask, but perhaps....
- Foxhuls 4mo agoThe OS of choice may be an “impossible” ask from Apple. However with the Neo running on the A18 I don’t think we’re far from seeing something along those lines.
- ThrowawayR2 4mo agoWon't happen anytime soon because the smartphone manufacturers have decided that folding is a flagship phone feature with a flagship price tag attached. I'm still waiting for a large folding phone with no/minimal outer display and with all other features cost reduced for half the price of the flagship folding phones.
- didip 4mo agoI don’t quite understand this new product strategy. I usually am a pro Apple consumer but how many high end users actually want this form factor?
- Schiendelman 4mo agoI think you'll be very surprised at how successful this is. Do you remember the Microsoft prototype for a folding tablet? It would have two different apps running, and you could use the spine to pull data between them, a kind of visual clipboard. I don't think that workflow is as important now, but having two apps open (one on each side of a device) is going to be killer, and it's something they're clearly hinting at with some of their asks for developers (and with their iPad OS).
- 12_throw_away 4mo ago> stop thinking about creating software for a specific piece of hardware. Design software to be adaptable across a range of screen sizes and aspect ratios This is right, of course, and pretty obvious I think. But a part of me also thinks that we're still not good at it (or are not good at it anymore). At the very least, the tradeoff is a huge increase in UI complexity. It was so, so easy to design UIs with Hypercard when you knew it was going to run on a 512×342 display.
- rasz 4mo agofoldable screen = new recurring revenue stream
- asah 4mo agoFoldables are life changing - everyone I know who's got one, doesn't go back. It's all the benefits of a tablet with the weight/thickness of a cell. Example: maps shows both the map and listing detail. Example: messaging/email apps show the message/channel list and the current message Example: virtual keyboard has plenty of space for punctuation, emojis, etc. Example: games and multimedia are perfectly pleasant to view, even for hours. Example: I used the remote-control app to take photos from my Sony and Fuji cameras, and the live preview was large enough to easily check for tack-sharpness, which is hard even in the camera viewfinder.
- HDBaseT 4mo agoAnecdotally, everyone I've seen with a foldable has gone back.
- butz 4mo agoHow about phones that you can attach one to another and have as much of a phone as you want? Buy two phones - simple foldable. 4? That's almost a tablet worth of screen estate. Want more? Only your budget is the limit. Go as far as 85" TV if you want.
- gradientsrneat 4mo agoReminds me of a billboard I saw where Apple was touting the alleged privacy of the iPhone with a guy wearing clothes nearly the same color as his skin. I know iPhone isn't really private, and I'd rather not have a phone that isn't repairable, but I can appreciate the clever marketing in both cases.
- Jamesbeam 4mo agoThe thing I liked most about the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 I had for a while was that I met a lot of interesting people because of it. It broke like four times under warranty because the crease got gummed up with their glue strips in the summer or it got brittle when I travelled to Greenland because of the cold in the winter, it felt uncomfortable and often moved in the pocket you put it into in a way that would annoy you every time you sat down somewhere. But once you pull it out, something magical happens. Foldables are still one of those items you will rarely see in the wild, and it peaks the curiosity of people in a way that will make them come over and ask questions. You see them touch it really carefully and open it really, really slowly because they are afraid they might break it, and suddenly you have this magical, foldable screen right in front of you that turns this heavy slab into a form factor known by anyone who ever held a book in their life. When it snaps open or shut with the satisfying noise and haptic feedback, it makes them genuinely happy and smile, and watching different people having the same experience over and over again is kind of satisfying and in a way justified the price for me alone. I am sure the Apple foldable will have its downsides and is heavily overpriced, and if you buy it in the EU, you won’t be able to use half the features, but I am still going to get one because I will have a lot of joy watching people interact with new technology for the first time when I travel, and I love listening to how they think it could improve their life or how and for what they would get one themselves.
- jauntywundrkind 4mo agoI can't see myself paying for foldables, but I think they are incredibly neat. I spend a ton of time on my phone, and the idea that the screen could get much bigger really tempts! That said, I really wonder if this could be a shark jump move. I think one of iOS app's biggest wins is that developers have a relatively narrow set of form factors to target, that making bespoke interface layouts is the obvious choice & that that really allows careful crafting. I'm overselling this case a bit, but it feels like Apple is saying: ok, now make your apps responsive. Add more. Some folks will figure out each layout nicely, but I feel like in many cases, the responsive layouts are going to be less well crafted, not have such thought out intracacies. I love responsiveness, but it generally pushes layout complexity down, requires simpler / plainer design languages, in my view. This pushes away from bespoke careful craft, and towards mechanized systems, and there's some design loss in this push.
- pohl 4mo agoAlso, one of the session videos illustrated the content with an app for keeping track of one's fleet of paper airplanes.
- jshier 4mo agoAnd another was about origami.
- Lammy 4mo ago> On the other side of the pond, Android foldable owners have spent seven years discovering which of their apps work and which ones don’t. Funny how this thing isn't even announced yet and the fanpeople are already glazing Apple over it :p I daily a Surface Duo 2 as my car-relegated phone, running Android 12 (which I kinda regret upgrading from 10) and loaded with offline maps and plenty of cached music, and it has never been an issue when an app doesn't gracefully handle being stretched across both panes. Some of them aren't ideal to use that way with the bezel in the middle if they put interactable UI elements there, which is what the SDK support update is surely about, but I have never ever seen an app fail to work like this blurb is worded to claim. There's a toggle in the application manager for whether or not an app should open dual-pane, and single-pane is the default anyway because why wouldn't one want to multitask?
- vidarh 4mo agoI have a Pixel Fold and similar experience - some minor nuisances but not come across anything that doesn't work. The biggest nuisance is apps restarting when switching from the front screen to the big screen.
- ncr100 4mo agoSome weird OS experiences with my Fold recently.. the bottom of the home screen shortcut bar is appearing over apps, unexpectedly. Namely Monarch Money
- aalzi 4mo agocan't be only me who thought apple is contributing to folding@home and not a foldable iPhone.
- NamTaf 4mo ago> The hardware picture has been clear for months. The iPhone Ultra, the apparent name for this new form factor iPhone, is a book-style foldable, reportedly featuring a 7.7- to 7.8-inch inner display and a 5.3- to 5.5-inch cover screen, unfolding to a 4:3 ratio closer to an iPad mini than a widescreen display. Excellent. Now that you have a supply chain for small screens again, please use that same cover screen to make an updated mini phone! I've sat in patient silence waiting for this exact moment!
- ncr100 4mo agoBook style, yeah that's the best aspect ratio vs portrait sized foldable. Wider is better for video without rotation need
- momolii 4mo ago[flagged]
- dmzxnico 4mo agoI'm happy they finally stop supporting Intel macs as of macOS 27
- brokenmachine 4mo agoFoldable gets zero interest from me. Apple foldable is -100 interest.