Apple recently unveiled its first foldable iPhone, but Samsung has been making foldable phones since 2019. With the iPhone Duo, Apple has brought some new thoughts and technologies to the segment, but the company is pretending it has invented foldable phones all by itself.
Just in time for the iPhone Duo's launch, Time magazine published an article glorifying Apple's first foldable phone and its new CEO John Ternus. The article tries to paint a pretty picture of a company engineering the future of mobile technology with foldable phones.
Reading through it, you would almost think Apple has singlehandedly invented the concept of a foldable smartphone.
Speaking about rival foldable phones like the Galaxy Z Fold 8, Ternus claimed, “The other examples in the world felt kind of cheap and crappy.”
The iPhone Duo owes its foldable display to Samsung
The iPhone Duo is certainly a sleek device and brings some smart UI design innovations. But let us be real. That beautiful, foldable inner screen the Time article raved about is largely built on years of Samsung Display's innovations and the foundation Samsung's smartphone division laid over the past seven years.
Apple has historically relied on Samsung for OLED panels, and the foldable space is no exception. While Apple touts its custom polymer and nano-texture surface, without Samsung Display's years of research and manufacturing innovations in the flexible OLED space, the iPhone Duo simply would not exist, at least in its current form. .
There is a reason Apple is exclusively using Samsung Display's foldable OLED panel and not panels from LG Display or other Chinese brands.
Since September 2019, Samsung did all the heavy lifting to turn foldable phones from a niche concept into a mainstream reality. After the first Galaxy Fold's rocky start, Samsung did not retreat. It continued to push forward by improving the technology year after year, using early adopter feedback, and normalizing the form factor.
Samsung spent years doing the hard work
As we noted earlier, the immense hype surrounding the iPhone Duo only proves Samsung was right about foldables all along. By the time the Galaxy Z Fold 8 arrived in July, Samsung had already solved most of the hardest engineering problems in the foldable smartphone space.
In fact, the iPhone Duo reportedly had some production bottlenecks, which shows exactly why Samsung's years of manufacturing experience matters.
Ternus' “cheap and crappy” comment leaves out that the iPhone Duo is over 20% heavier and 15% thicker than the Galaxy Z Fold 8, which makes the latter an engineering marvel.
And Samsung achieved it by refining its foldables through multiple iterations over the years. Samsung also took the financial and reputational risks that Apple did not have to.
Let us look at the technologies Samsung brought to the foldable space first:
- Ultra Thin Glass (UTG): Samsung introduced UTG to protect fragile foldable screens, making foldable phones feel like premium glass devices while maintaining flexibility.
- Water resistance: Samsung launched the world's first water-resistant foldables (IPX8 rating) with the Galaxy Z Fold 3, an incredibly difficult engineering feat for a device with complex moving hinge parts.
- Flex Mode: Samsung's software innovation allowed apps on foldables to seamlessly adapt when the screen is half folded. Apple copied this feature with the iPhone Duo.
- Stylus support: Adding a digitizer to a flexible, folding display without damaging the screen was a massive breakthrough that helped improve productivity. Samsung added it with the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and kept it in the Fold 4, Fold 5, and the Fold 6. However, Samsung later decided to remove stylus compatibility with the Galaxy Z Fold 7 to make it extremely thin.
- Under-display cameras: Samsung pushed the boundaries of engineering by hiding the front-facing camera below the Galaxy Z Fold 4's foldable screen.
Apple deserves praise, but Samsung deserves credit too
To be fair, Apple did not just copy Samsung's homework; it has indeed introduced some genuine improvements. Its decision to redesign iOS and move the app dock and other controls to the right side of the screen rather than leaving them at the bottom is a thoughtful software tweak that makes one-handed access easier.
It also made the foldable screen's crease almost invisible, albeit at the expense of the punch and vibrant color OLED panels are known for.
The iPhone Duo's curved corners might make the phone look more sophisticated, but it does not beat the Galaxy Z Fold 8's symmetry. Samsung's foldable is also substantially cheaper to buy and get repaired in most markets globally.
Apple taking an already mature technology, polishing the software, and marketing it as a revolutionary invention is a familiar playbook. The iPhone Duo will undoubtedly sell well, maybe even better than Samsung's foldables.
But let us give Samsung the credit where it is due. Apple did not invent the foldable phone, and it certainly did not build the flexible display market from scratch. It was Samsung that did most of the heavy lifting to popularize foldable phones.
Post a Comment