Very few Americans are interested in folding their smartphones.
Are Americans ready to fold their smartphones like slices of thin-crust pizza? Only a few, according to a CivicScience survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults in late July and early August.
Samsung has announced that it will release the Galaxy Fold, a smartphone with a foldable screen, in select markets in September. How interested are you in buying the Galaxy Fold?
• 85% – Not at all interested
• 12% – Somewhat interested
• 3% – Very interestedWhen the Samsung brand name is removed from the equation, the interest levels bump upward a good bit. Perhaps this has something to do with the phone’s launch troubles.
How interested would you be in buying a smartphone with a foldable touchscreen?
• 76% – Not at all interested
• 20% – Somewhat interested
• 4% – Very interested
MacDailyNews Take: The general public will be interested in foldable smartphones the day the foldable iPhone is unveiled. They’re not interested in half-assed defective dreck excreted onto the rubes by South Korean dishwasher makers and similar ilk.
As with fingerprint and facial recognition, when Apple debuts a foldable iPhone, then foldable smartphones will have been done right. — MacDailyNews, January 17, 2019
We’ll see a mess of weird attempts before Apple shows how it’s to be done, as usual. — MacDailyNews, January 23, 2019
If and when Apple debuts a foldable iPhone, they’ll be showing the world how it should be done and what to copy going forward. As usual. — MacDailyNews, February 27, 2019
“The general public will be interested in foldable smartphones the day the foldable iPhone is unveiled.”
That’s a wild assumption. Not a fact
Question MDN’s assumptions all you want, but history has proven MDN makes the correct assumptions far more often than not.
Yep, just like speakers. And social networks. And Maps. And keyboards. And laptop GPUs. And touchbars. And… and… and..
So a statement about the future that they think will happen is not a FACT. Thanks for letting us know that.
It is actually an assertion, not an assumption. and that assertion is backed by historical evidence in which Apple entered an existing market with a well-designed product and crushed the competition.
That assumes the assertion is correct…. 🙂
Yes, if Apple decides to do a foldable iPhone, they will be the first to do it right. I agree that so far the models that have been shown by other companies are laughable in their execution.
But, I wonder if there is a market for such an item. Just because technology allows for something doesn’t mean it makes for a better product.
What would be the advantage of a foldable phone? Our phones already can accommodate screens that are plenty large.
In essence, you’d have a phone that could fold out into the size of a small tablet. But again, to what end? If I want a tablet sized display, I will take an iPad or iPad mini. But often when I use my iPhone, I want a screen that roughly fits in one hand. I don’t want a larger screen that folds out.
I guess the only value would be to basically eliminate the need for a separate tablet computer.
I know that there has always been the familiar refrain of “why would anybody want that” with new tech, only to be shown that done properly it does succeed…but again, that doesn’t mean that every tech makes it to market or deserves to do so. It will be interesting to see what happens with this concept.
I don’t care who makes it, I don’t have any interest in any folding phone.
Me either.
Choice is good. Buyer beware. Always true
In related news, most people aren’t mathematicians. Therefore mathematics must be unnecessary.
“survey finds most carriage owners not interested in ‘horseless carriage.'”
People don’t know what they want until you show it to them.
What you say could be true. But not every new tech idea succeeds. For instance, there was the 3D TV set fad from a few years ago. Everyone thought it would be the next big thing but it fizzled.
So that’s the interesting part: for every new idea, is it more like the horseless carriage or the 3D TV?
It’s just like when people try to justify starting a new company, they always point to the big time examples: the Steve Jobs and Apple, Elon Musk and Tesla, Jeff Bezos and Amazon, etc…without mentioning that something like 9 out of 10 startup companies go under in the first year. So sure you have your superstar hits, but you also have a whole lot of failures. But such is life and evolution: you need many attempts to generate a relative few successes, but it is those successes that make all the difference in the world.
That would be because they are a stupid idea. The reason many of us bought iPhones in the first place was because A) they worked great with our Macs, something the vast majority of other players didn’t care about, and B) because we hated our flip phones. Amazing what Samsung, Google, Microsoft et. al. come up with when Apple isn’t there to copy, even this far into the 21st century.
Just another fad like 3D TV was. It would probably last one cycle, if that.
If the only point of it is that it folds, then it is just a novelty. How many want a novelty that is thicker (probably) and is likely to break more easily? On the other hand, if it really does something useful…
Like double the screen size?