Apple’s September launch event brought some decent updates to the iPhone 15 Pro line, including titanium designs and USB-C. The Pro Max even got a longer 5x zoom lens. But we didn’t get a folding iPhone. At least, not one you can fold without snapping it in half and ruining it. But with many mobile firms including Samsung, Google and OnePlus now selling folding devices, it’s beginning to feel like Apple is late to the party. And that might be a problem.
Apple dominates in the premium phone category, but foldables — which very much fit into the premium space in terms of price — are already nipping at its heels, with Motorola telling CNET that 20% of customers buying its Razr foldable jumped ship from Apple. Meanwhile, Samsung is in its fifth generation of its Flip and Fold series. and as CNET Editor Lisa Eadicicco found out in a visit to Seoul, South Korea, “foldables are everywhere.”
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The iPhone 15 Pro Max is a superb phone. But what if it could bend?
Apple has always found success in biding its time, observing the industry and launching its own take on a product when it’s ready. Apple didn’t invent phones, tablets, smartwatches or computers, but it found ways to take existing products and make them more useful, more valuable in day-to-day life and, dare I say, more exciting. It’s why the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac lines dominate in the market today.
And for me, I need to see Apple’s take on the foldable phone. I’ve written before about how disappointed I am in foldables. I’ve been a mobile reporter for 12 years and phones have become increasingly dull as they’ve converged to become slight variations on the same rectangular slab.
Foldables promised something new, something innovative, something that briefly sparked some excitement in me, but several years in, that excitement has dwindled to the point of being extinguished. They are fine products and while I like the novelty of a screen that bends, they’re not a revolution in how we interact with our phones. Not in the way that the arrival of the touchscreen was when we were still using buttons to type out texts.
Apple didn’t invent tablet computers, but its iPad line revolutionized the category.
Given Apple’s close relationships with top-tier developers — not to mention its own vast developer team — I expect an eventual Apple foldable to offer innovations that make it more than just an iPhone that folds in half.
And I truly hope it does. I want to look forward to tech launches again. I want to feel excited to get a new gadget in my hands and feel that “wow” moment as I do something transformative for the first time.
In short, I don’t want to be bored by technology anymore. Apple, it’s over to you.
