The iPhone Air was arguably the biggest innovation in iPhone design since the iPhone X. The iPhone Fold we’re expecting to see launch next year will be an even bigger shift.
All the signs point to the iPhone Fold being the best foldable smartphone launched to date, but there is one big problem with it – and it’s almost the obvious one …
Apple is waiting eight years, but that’s fine
Apple famously doesn’t aim to be first to market with a new technology, but rather to be the best. The company watches and waits as other companies launch their products, learns from their mistakes, and then tries to launch the best possible implementation of the technology.
Even so, it has watched and waited for an extraordinarily long time when it comes to foldable smartphones. Samsung launched its first folding phone seven years ago, so Apple will be coming to the party some eight years later.
The wisdom of waiting very quickly became apparent when the launch of the first Galaxy Fold was an unmitigated disaster. The company started by shipping out review models, with tech writers finding major problems with it almost immediately. Samsung responded by delaying the launch and taking back review units. It subsequently cancelled customer orders for the device and refunded their money.
There were two issues with the design which persisted several generations later. First, a very visible and ugly crease in the center of the unfolded screen. Second, the display was very vulnerable to damage caused by dust and dirt being trapped during the fold.
It’s only this year that Apple was said to be satisfied with the display quality of iPhone fold prototypes after the company tasked its own engineers with eliminating the crease.
The price is the obvious problem
The most obvious problem with the iPhone fold is the likely price. It looks set to be around twice the price of an iPhone Pro model, with estimates of anything up to $2,500. The most recent of these is well toward the upper end of the range.
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