How Apple Can Fix Foldables.

Foldables have been around since 2018. And every year, we've seen the tech getting better, form factors getting thinner, performance getting faster. But here's the thing. After all this time, after all these generations, it's still struggling to gain momentum among consumers. The biggest reason for that is the huge price barrier. These things are crazy expensive. They're going for almost $2,000 on average. And yet, rumor mill has it that Apple is about to give it a shot with a foldable iPhone. I think they're probably going to call it the iPhone Fold or the iPhone Ultra or whatever they end up calling it. It's expected to drop later this year. And I think that it's going to be an interesting year for smartphones because of that. And the reason for that is Apple doesn't ship halfbaked products. Well, maybe the iPhone 17 with the iOS 26 was a little bit rough at launch, but you get the point. They don't enter a category until they're fully prepared. So, either they've figured out what everyone else has missed for the 6 years by sort of being in parallel watching what the industry has been doing with foldables or they're about to make the most expensive mistake in history. Okay, to give you guys a little bit of context, I've been testing out a couple of foldables for the past year. Started with the Galaxy Xfold 7, but then I switched over to the Pixel 10 Pro Fold. And in a lot of ways, the experience has been polar opposites. The Pixel Fold is missing so many things that could make it great, while the ZF7 nails a lot of things for the ultimate power user. But none of them are perfect. So, let's talk about what foldables actually get right, what they still get wrong, and what Apple absolutely needs to nail to make this category finally make sense. Now, the Pixel Fold has been my travel partner for a few reasons. It replaces my tablet without adding too much bulk because when I open it, it essentially restores that form factor. It's a pretty great canvas to read articles, you know, browse the web, check on email, even type out emails. It's a really nice screen real estate to work with, and it fits in my pouch no problem. But the real reason why I keep going back to it is not because of its display. It's actually the OS. I love this platform. It's the purest form of Android, exactly as Google intended. And for me, that matters more than anything. But the more I use the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, the more I start to feel like something doesn't add up, especially coming from the Galaxy X. The first thing that stood out to me is the form factor. When you put this thing next to the Galaxy X, the difference is pretty obvious. The Pixel feels heavier. It's chunkier. It isn't all that pocketable. The Xfold 7 comes in at 4. 2 mm unfolded, and it feels like a piece of the future. The Pixel, it feels like a foldable that's a few generations old. Then there is performance. Google's Tensor chip is falling behind Qualcomm and you feel it in everyday use. Opening apps, scrolling through Instagram, navigating through the UI. It's not as snappy as the X7. And for $1,800, I just feel like it's a cash grab. But the biggest issue is the software gap. Samsung gives you a taskbar, multi-wind, flex mode, even two separate home screen layouts for the cover screen and the main screen. You can apply separate wallpapers to each of them. The Pixel gives you none of that. The inner display is essentially an expanded version of the cover screen, and it isn't actually designed for a bigger canvas. Plus, there's no Dex equivalent or any way to connect this to a monitor to expand into something a little bit more productive. I mean, sure, you can still mirror what's on your screen, but if you think about it for a sec, Google is fundamentally a software company, and yet, ironically, Samsung's foldable software experience is miles ahead. On the hardware side, I'll give credit to Google for designing a robust hinge. And overall, this thing does feel like it's pretty well-b built. But I did notice that the ambient light sensor is still unreliable. The screen dims even in a bright room setting. So, I had to disable auto brightness and adjust the brightness manually whenever I'm outside or indoors in a dark setting. It also seems like it's less durable over time according to some of the reports that I've seen online. And the camera is a step down from the Pixel 10 Pro, which is a lot cheaper than this. You're working with a 40 megapixel main, a 10. 5 megapixel ultrawide, and a 10. 8 megapixel telephoto. So, you're losing a little bit of detail compared to its cheaper just a standard Pixel phone. Now, to be fair, there are certain things that Pixel does genuinely well. The first thing is, of course, battery life. For instance, it's way better than the Galaxy X full 7. Google's Tensor G5 is power efficient, and the battery size is 14% larger. So, you're getting more endurance day-to-day. They've also added built-in MagSafe support, which honestly is one of the smartest moves that they've made to pull the iPhone users who've been itching to make a switch. The AI features are also pretty useful. There's magic eraser, circle to search, which is

low-key awesome. Uh the Gemini integration is with every first party app now. And there's also something really cool called instant view, which is built into the camera app. So basically, you can preview your photos on the left side of the display while you're still shooting on the right using the viewfinder. But here's where things get really interesting. Because while Samsung and Google are pretty established here in the North American market, uh people are aware of some of the products that are out there. A company called Oppo has quietly built what might be the best foldable on the market right now, and most of you can't buy it. And the phone in question is the Oppo Find N6. You can import one for around $1,800 US, which is roughly the same price as the Pixel 10 Pro Fold. Though with import duties and things like that, it can be a lot more. But there's no official support, no warranty. I mean, you can't just walk into a store and buy one, which is unfortunate because this phone solves two problems that have essentially defined the foldable category since day one. The first is the crease. Every foldable has one, including the Pixel Fold. I mean, you get used to it over time, and I don't really mind it that much, but it's always there, and over time, it becomes more prominent the more you fold and unfold the display. OPPO has used something really interesting. It's called laser scanning and a titanium hinge with a special polymer fill to make the fine N6 inner display almost completely flat. Then there is the battery. The ZF7 has a 4,400 mAh cell. The Pixel Fold has a 515 mAh battery. The Find N6 has a 6,000 mAh silicon carbon battery. That's 36% larger than the Galaxy ZFold 7. And interestingly, it does so with the same thickness as the ZFold. I mean, for a device that is trying to replace your tablet and your phone at once, that is what the battery should be. And they've also managed to somehow include stylus support. Interestingly, Samsung removed the SPEN digitizer from the fold entirely to slim it down, but somehow OPO managed to make it happen. And of course, the whole package is backed by the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 flagship level cameras with a 200 megapixel main camera, 50 megap ultrawide, 50 megapixel telephoto setup. This would have been the perfect rival for the Z47 in the North American foldable market, but not everyone knows about it. And I feel like that's an excellent opportunity for Apple to step in and set a benchmark. So, here are five things, at least in my opinion, that Apple have to get right with their next foldable iPhone. The first thing is to, of course, kill the crease, or at least try to make it seamless. I mean, OPPO proved it possible, and Apple has reportedly been pursuing a near invisible crease, regardless of the high R& D cost by using new materials that make it imperceptible in normal use. So, if they actually manage to pull it off, that might be the moment when this category will sort of start to gain some momentum because when you walk into an Apple store and pick it up for the first time and just immediately notice, hey, what is that? That first impression is what sells this to the mainstream. Secondly, Apple should commit to an identity. The iPhone Fold should be a phone first, tablet second type of device. We've seen foldables in the past with smaller cover screens, basically forcing you to open the phone and use the inner display. Some of them are narrower, which shrinks the real estate. And again, it forces you to open it up. I think even with the Galaxy Z7, I found myself constantly opening the screen because the cover screen, in my opinion, just felt a bit too narrow for me to uh read content. So, I think Apple should go phone first because I think the folded experience should feel exactly like using a regular iPhone. Obviously, there's going to be a difference in form factors, but the experience should be similar. The inner display should be the bonus, the upgrade, the reason why you're going to be spending that much money on it. Uh there's allegedly a dummy model floating around the internet that shows a passport style form factor. So, when you open it up, you get a wider screen, almost like an iPad mini. And that wider aspect ratio actually fixes one of the most annoying things about the current foldable smartphones, and that's those giant black bars that you see on the top and bottom when you're watching a video in full screen mode. So yeah, that landscape aspect ratio might not be all that bad after all. The next thing is the iOS experience. I mean, it has to make sense. Think about what Apple already has. Handoff, AirDrop, Universal Clipboard, a hardware and software ecosystem that already talks pretty well within their entire portfolio. and it's better than anything else on the market right now. The foundation is there, but imagine layering a iPad OS-l like experience on top of the unfolded display. Uh maybe giving us separate layouts for the cover screen and the main screen. Each of them should be properly optimized. External display support would be really cool that unlocks even more features. Maybe bring in some Mac OS continuity features. Possibly giving users the option to use the iPhone F as a secondary display like Sidecar to complement your Mac. I mean, that would genuinely be a gamecher. And then there's the big one. Third-party app support should be optimized for the

folded and unfolded experience from day one or at least maybe in a month or so because it is a new form factor. It takes time because right now on Android, even the best foldables have apps that look like stretched out phone apps on the big screen. So, because Apple controls the app store, they can require developers to optimize for their foldable layout. And the best part is that if they do start to get into the groove of things, they might actually push developers to fix their Android foldable apps as well. Then there's the battery. Set it to a minimum of 6,000 mAh. I mean, Apple proved that they can get there without making it too thick. And Apple has kind of showed it with the iPhone Air with a 3,000ish mAh battery while being ridiculously thin. So, if they double down on that and still manage to keep MagS safe, add proper fast wireless charging on top of that and pair all of that with their flagship A series chip doing what it does best in performance and efficiency. I mean, the experience is going to be really hard to beat. Last, but not least, we have cameras. It has to be on par with the iPhone Pro models. I mean, look, Apple is most certainly going to price this iPhone Fold above $2,000. maybe ridiculously more than $2,500. And at that price point, every single lens has to be flagship level. Main sensor, ultra wide, telephoto, although the dummy models that I've been seeing have only been showcasing two lenses. So maybe we'll get a wide ultra wide or wide telephoto setup. But either way, it needs to match or beat the iPhone Pro series. Um, also if Apple can give it the ability to shoot RAW, add support for ProRes RAW recording, maybe a dedicated pro mode for filmmakers, uh, also make that USBC port Thunderbolt friendly for faster data transfers. I mean, those features could just instantly justify the cost. So, there you have it, guys. My wish list for Apple's foldable iPhone. I just wanted to share what was on my mind as I was using the Pixel Fold and the Galaxy X7. Neither one of them are terrible foldable smartphones. They still have their fores. Pixel has the purity of Android without the polish. Samsung has the performance to back it up and it's arguably the multitasking benchmark at the moment. And Oppo has gone allin with the most bleeding edge specs, but most of the world can't buy it. I'm curious to see how the iPhone Fold turns out. Let me know what you guys think about the current foldable landscape. What is the one thing Apple needs to get right for you to consider a foldable? Thanks so much for watching and I'll talk to you guys in the next one.