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Comment by klodolph | Hacker News Reader

I am truly, deeply, unsurprised that foldable phones fail along the seam.

I know that's not the point of the post, and I'm not blaming the author. It just seems like such a ridiculous concept in the first place. My old flip phone had its own problems, and there wasn't even a display along the seam.

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I don't get the point of this design either, unless it's to show off deliberate planned obolescence. Two regular screens with ultra-narrow bezels on the butt edge would achieve the same effect, without the constantly stressed folding bit. I have some old (almost 10 years old now) smartphone LCDs and the pixels go right up to the edge of the glass itself.

The point is that it has a smaller footprint. While I think the flip is slightly dubious in utility the fold has undeniable utility in being able to fold. You gain a tablet sized screen that fits inside most pockets. I personally find that extremely compelling. Two screens doesn't achieve the same effect because it's two screens. Unless there's no bezel or physical gap (that you are going to feel any time you're using the device) then you can't utilize the size of the screen to its fullest potential. Microsoft's Duo phone does use two screens but it defeats the point of having one massive screen.

> Unless there's no bezel or physical gap (that you are going to feel any time you're using the device)

Reviews indicate that when even fully open there's a slight bend you can feel when you're using the touchscreen.

There is, and it's visible if you look at the screen from a side angle, however during normal usage it's practically unnoticeable.

It's really incredible how much technology and marketing has gone into removing a tiny seam (which is actually not even fully removed anyway).

The people who are tricked into buying these phones through that marketing are beta testers.

Give it a couple of revisions and you'll see products that you actually want to buy.

Compare those pen based tablets that Bill Gates was demoing in IIRC 2002 to the first ipad.

Some, possibly many of the people who bought these phones were totally willing beta-testers. Some people are just excited about a new piece of technology and have the means to drop upwards of $1500 on it just for kicks.

Tablet PCs were much better pen enabled devices than the first iPad. It took years before apple had the pencil.

It seems very strange.

Like even if you really wanted screen that went down to a smaller size, why not do something scroll-inspired, rather than book-inspired?

The bezels would really need to be ultra narrow to not bother me while watching a video.

What if they were supra ultra megatronium narrow?

What happens if one tiny piece of grit gets in-between the two screens at the visually seamless butt edge? It then gets leveled as they click into place and cracks one doesn't it?

*levered

I'd wager it's a marketing play.

Apple has developed it's own silicon and the chips powering iPhones, iPads and Macs are now the same. They come up with new and interesting manufacturing processes, or supply chain management. Their phones have lidar now. But you know what I've hear for years even from developer friends? "Apple can no longer innovate."

Samsung comes up with a folding screen of dubious quality or changes the shape of the phone and people love it. Internally it's just another Qualcomm or Exynos or whatever. But then what isn't besides Apple? Seems reasonable to try and carve out their segment of the Android market and I think they are largely successful. I know people who will specifically buy Samsung even when you can get similar specced phones for cheaper.

>even from developer friends? "Apple can no longer innovate."

You could consider getting new friends who are more intelligent. Some people are being fooled by the fact that a rectangle shape is staying consistent year after year, a very surface attribute. Apple does deep work. People who think only the surface matters are missing the story.

Samsung has 20% market share. About the same as Apple. If it works it works right?

Sure, parasitism works pretty well in fact. I just couldn’t stomach promoting it by using one of their gimmick-festooned phones. But plenty of people don’t give a shit.

I love the idea of explaining a company's process as "deep work"! To me it resonates re Apple and I'm now intrigued on who else falls into that category.

For some reason Google does not seem to fit, possibly because of Xoogler anecdotes I've read here. GitHub seems close but maybe too scattered in many directions (for example, they seem to have some new huge feature in beta every other week). Airbnb does deep work from what I've seen (I attended an internal hackathon once). I wonder if that's not one of the strengths of YC and YC-picks, inherently...

Valve.

> people love it

Like, a lot of people? I don't know anyone who's even been intrigued enough to buy it, and an overwhelming majority of feedback I hear online is negative.

If you made put two screen without bezel, you can't fold it.

Yes you certainly can, with an appropriately designed hinge.

Fold it the other way. Then you get your external screen thing for free.

Except you can't do that, because these screens are made of soft plastic and are incredibly fragile and scratchable. So there went that idea.

The thread is referring to using two regular (glass) screens and folding those.

Looks reasonable, but opening operation become weird.

That's fine the whole idea is weird anyway.

This reasoning implies that it's the continuity of a single screen which makes that device capable of being folded inwards.

This is in fact completely backward: a continuous deformable surface has all the problems of two exactly adjacent but discontinuous surfaces, with the additional problem of providing relief for the fold.

The seam of two screens would surely make using a stylus impossible even if you could glide your finger across smoothly, no?

These phones aren't flat when they're open. There's a crease.

Yeah but that's not nearly as bad as a fully disconnected seam between two separate screens, unless you also imagine using the same plastic surface across them or something.

But really, we should just look at Microsoft's Duo and see the reality of a two screen device.

I would be more excited about the idea if both the folded and unfolded modes actually had desirable aspect ratios. The current fold's "front" screen in closed mode is this weird super narrow display that will be yet another nightmare for web and app developers to adjust for, and the full unfolded screen has a close to 4:3 ratio which doesn't suit any media other than possibly GameCube games

The only way a foldable phone would makes any sense to me is if it's actually two fully functional perforated phones that you can tear apart and use independently, in case one of them fails, or you need to lend a phone to somebody else.

Maybe they could sell big roles of perforated phones, so you can just tear a new phone off the end each time you need one, like toilet paper.

If they made the screen as easy to replace as possible, treat them as consumable like removable battery, and sell the replacement at reasonable cost, it might actually works. Swapping a foldable screen once a year at $50 on a >$1000 phone is reasonable expense IMO.

those screens are the most expensive part, on top of that replacing them is hard due to technology that makes them good(good enough?), you make them easily replaceable and it will make them less desirable by the customer.

It is the most expensive part, yes, but even so, the BoM price for that flexible screen might still be cheap enough to be passed on to customer. They'll need to be creative on how to make that part as easy to replace as possible with as few material and complexity as possible, maybe like applying a piece of screen protector and slotting the edge into a slot like those thin flex wires.

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