The Taiwanese analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, famous in the tech industry for his often spot-on predictions on Apple’s future plans, he is convinced that the Cupertino company is working on an iPhone with a foldable screen. In a note sent to his customers, Kuo also indicates the specifications and expected production levels. The smartphone will have “an 8” OLED screen and QHD + resolution, “he says, and an estimated 15-20 million units will be produced in the course of 2023. Also according to the analyst, devices with foldable displays will become a must. for any manufacturer and will be key to triggering the next high-end device update cycle over the next couple of years.
The most interesting aspect of Kuo’s note, however, is the rationale that the analyst provides to justify the very existence and future popularity of this new product category.
“At the moment, foldable smartphones mainly have the function of integrating with tablets. However, we believe this is only one of the possible applications of folding designs. We expect foldable devices to help blur the market distinction between smartphones, tablets and laptops ”. The bottom line is that Apple, thanks to its ecosystem advantage, will offer one of the most popular products in the segment, snatching the top step of the podium from competitive flexible screen devices.
The eventual folding iPhone would arrive in fact in the wake of products such as the Galaxy Z Flip, the Huawei Mate X e XS, or the Motorola Razr. All products that have paved the way to the segment, but which today remain devices for a few enthusiasts with ample economic availability. Furthermore, none of these products has been able to offer completely convincing use cases to fully justify the presence of a foldable display. Sure, the system apps are (almost all) optimized, Android offers dedicated features for split-screen on flexible screens, and it can be said that it is more convenient to carry a Motorola Razr folded in half in your pocket rather than a smartphone with a nearly screen size. 7 “.
Apple’s competitive privilege (more than advantage) is to have built an ecosystem in which control over software is equal to, if not greater than, its control over hardware. This translates into the luxury of being able to observe the macro-trends of innovation from the outside, entering a new segment only if and when the time is ripe. A striking example of this strategy is the Apple Watch, which arrived late on the market compared to competitors of all shapes, and today firmly in command of the sector. And what about the AirTags? In this case, Apple has even allowed itself to delay its release by two years than expected.
To bring a foldable smartphone to market before the others, most Android manufacturers have been willing to make drastic compromises. The quality of foldable OLED screens, for example, is significantly lower than that of traditional screens. Adding hinges and breaking points is a solved problem, but the devices inevitably remain more fragile and complex than traditional smartphones. Is it really worth giving up the quality of a traditional OLED screen for the sole purpose of saving some space in your pocket? And being able to watch a movie on a plastic-looking square screen, a little bigger than that of the smartphone but with a conspicuous fold in the center, justify the price of a fold?
If for Samsung, Huawei and Lenovo-Motorola the answer to these questions has been “yes”, in Cupertino so far they have said “no”. It is the same “no” that Apple continues to reserve for touch screens on Mac screens, so to speak, or that it reserved for 5G on iPhones until September last year. If in 2023 a foldable iPhone were to arrive on the market, then it will mean that flexible screens will have made huge strides, and that above all Apple’s designers and engineers will have found a square that for now seems to be missing. And someone in Cupertino will have been able to give, at least in part, an answer to the basic question that remains unanswered for us: what is, really, a smartphone with a screen that folds in half?