I don’t understand how Android is the dominant phone platform.

Louis XVI said:

Even Doonesbury spent several strips making fun of the Newton; awareness of it definitely broke out of insular nerd circles.

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Well, yeah, I'm exaggerating for rhetorical effect. Some people cared. Obviously it's NOT true that literally nobody cared. But figuratively, nobody cared.

I don't really get what analogika was trying to say, I'll be honest, but if the point was that there's a Simpsons meme about the Newton and not the disastrous early folding phones or Bendgate/Antennagate because folding phones and Bendgate/Antennagate are not culturally relevant, um.... I don't think that's very true.

Far and away the main reason there's a Simpsons meme about the Newton is that the Simpsons writers could write a funny joke about it that could stick the landing. It has nothing to do with cultural relevance. Just even a passing familiarity with a few episodes of Simpsons will make you aware that there jokes about highly obscure stuff and they make oblique, veiled references to subculture things all the time.

The thing I think is missing from the "cultural relevance" discussion is something can be culturally relevant with widespread awareness at a point in time and then fall from the public's mind and be reintroduced in a refined form as something new at a later date with basically no public memory (aside from a few people angrily shaking their fist about how it's been done before). As an example, does anyone remember the hype around "Ginger" or as it was known after launch "Segway"? I think everyone alive, at least in the US, at the time couldn't have avoided being aware about it if they had tried. Yet if you mention Segway to anyone today (and certainly if you called it Ginger) there are probably quite a few to most that don't remember the hype around that first product and it wasn't even a complete failure--after all it's successors are available still today. And none of that hype / initial product failure / negative reaction has impacted the later introductions of electric scooters, bikes, "hover boards", etc. even though they notionally serve the same purpose in a similar way.

Isn't that pretty much what a fad is? All hype all over the place and then nothing?

Ask most people on the street what a newton is and outside of tech junkies like us, no one would know. Ask the same person about an iPod and they will know what it is. Ask them about a macintosh computer and the same people will know you are referring to the orginal mac

The newton was the start of the whole PDA craze. That pretty much fizzled out because the tech was not quite there yet. Modern smartphone usage delivers what all those PDAs where trying to accomplish

hestermofet said:

I'm sorry, hinged designs are LESS durable? Allow me to introduce you to the practically indestructible Nintendo DS.

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The hinges on my old DS Lites (and Advance SP, and New 2DS XL) are looser than the were when new. My New 2DS XL in particular sometimes doesn't sleep properly when closed due to hinge wear.

Phone, laptop, handheld console, none of those with hinges I've ever owned have kept their hinge stiffness over time, and most have gotten a bit wobbly. Slab devices might leave the screen exposed, but folding devices have inevitable hinge wear. The only way to avoid it is to replace the device before it sets in.

I'm definitely not saying that the hinge doesn't have benefits, but strictly better durability isn't one of them.

cogwheel said:

I'm definitely not saying that the hinge doesn't have benefits, but strictly better durability isn't one of them.

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Slabs are possibly more durable than hinges, I admitted as much. But the increased durability is only marginal, and not worth the loss of double the screen size, or having two screens to multitask with, or potentially more battery life because you can do the most frequently done tasks on a screen that's in the size class of a smartwatch's screen.

Phone screens never cracked when they were made out of plastic instead of the glass used today, but was it worth it if you lose a touchscreen? I'd love to see Apple's take on a multitasking, dual-screened UI, because UI is kind of their thing, and they'd have a great take on it. It will probably be way more usable than Samsung or Google's take on it. I can't believe people are poopooing it for no other real reason than Apple hasn't done it yet.

LordDaMan said:

Isn't that pretty much what a fad is? All hype all over the place and then nothing?

Ask most people on the street what a newton is and outside of tech junkies like us, no one would know. Ask the same person about an iPod and they will know what it is. Ask them about a macintosh computer and the same people will know you are referring to the orginal mac

The newton was the start of the whole PDA craze. That pretty much fizzled out because the tech was not quite there yet. Modern smartphone usage delivers what all those PDAs where trying to accomplish

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Of course nobody will know what a „Newton“ is, thirty years after the fact.

But in 1993, many outside the geekosphere knew what it was. The device spawned the „PDA“ product category — in fact, the term was invented for the Newton.

…duplicat

analogika said:

Wow, do you actually know any people? Like, real, actual people?

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Yeah. I remember 5-10 years ago how it seemed like 90% of people had cracked phones...I mean me and damned near everyone I knew. Now...I can't even remember the last time I heard of someone cracking their screen. Maybe people have learned how to treat them better, or cases are better, or the glass is better (that is true for sure), but it seems like it happens less these days.

I think cracked phone screens are less common, because people have all given up and now get screen protectors. And certainly gorilla glass has improved, but I think screen protectors have much more relevance.

My Pixel 6 has a pristine screen...the protector however is ready to be swapped.

A marginal increase in durability isn't a good enough reason to hold back phone design, and truly useful features that new form factors such a folds can provide. If it was, we'd all be using Samsung Rugbys and Cat phones.

I’m interested in a folding phone. When Apple releases one I’ll probably get it (I’m too into the iOS ecosystem to leave it readily). But you’re way overselling their benefits and ignoring their very real liabilities. Slavs are vastly more durable than hinges. Yes hinges protect the internal screen (but not the external one) but they’re a massive structural weak point. Using the DS as an example of durable hinges is particularly laughable given that the hinge of the DS Lite was such a notorious weak point on that system Amazon stopped carrying them because of it. Folding screens also have significant issues that haven’t been filly resolved yet an article like this will never need to be written about a slab phone.

Do I think foldables have a future? Definitely. Again, I want one myself. But the trajectory between them and phablets (I still absolutely hate that word) is totally different. Just looking at Apple’s timing and responses (who were rightly seen as quite late to the big screen phone game) is evidence enough. The Galaxy Note launched in October 2011. After initial jokes about its size blew over it quickly proved to be where things were going. The iPhone 5, launched less than a year later, was already seen as undersized. A year after that, the 5S was internally acknowledged by Apple to be so small it was actively hurting sales (and had the declining market share to prove it). One year after that came the 6/6+ which went all-in on bigger screens and finally made it competitive again. All told it was less than two years from the first big-screen phones to small phones being penalized by the market and three years for even the latest latecomer to be forced to respond. Within five years small phones were basically dead. The Galaxy Fold came out 4 1/2 years ago, the Flip 3 1/2. Since then the market’s expanded, but it’s nowhere near replacing slab phones. Foldables are an extra high-end model in the product tree, not the only available option. Nobody’s being hurt by not having one. Apple MIGHT launch a folding iPhone in 2025, maybe.

In 2021, 10 years after the Galaxy Note launched, you could count the number of available phones with screens under 5.5” or so on one hand. What’s your expectation for foldables in 2029?

YoHo said:

I think cracked phone screens are less common, because people have all given up and now get screen protectors. And certainly gorilla glass has improved, but I think screen protectors have much more relevance.

My Pixel 6 has a pristine screen...the protector however is ready to be swapped.

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I'm unconvinced screen protectors prevent screen breakage. They prevent scratching the already hard to scratch modern smartphone glass, but the protector is soft and super thin so it scratches and crack really easily. I'm not convinced that's not to help convince you that they protected your smart phone, thus justifying buying another one. I had one phone case with a built in screen protector, which was terrible, so I took it off and never used a screen protector again. My wife puts them on every phone she gets.

I always use a rubbery case because smartphones since they started making them out of hard slippery materials have been too easy to slip out of my hands.

Exordium01 said:

What truly useful features? Maybe it’s because I don’t watch much video content on my phone, but the screen size of foldables doesn’t appeal to me, and the need to open them seems like a step backwards.

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Seems that way to me too. But it might be helpful for a person that finds themself too easily distracted by the phone's goings-on.

I've had screens crack when I stopped using screen protectors. I also use cases. The issue is most often what happens in my pocket vs. random falls . Though, about 2 months ago I left my phone on the roof of my car and sent it careening into a busy st. The screen protector was shot. The phone screen was fine.

I also once drop a phone and shatter the screen the day I got it...minutes after ordering the protector

I don't think screen saver effectiveness can be proved with anecdotes. If you screen breaks you can't know whether a screen protector would have saved it, and if it doesn't break you can't know if a screen protector attached to it would have broken. I think the only way to know is controlled tests. But we all know it's a lot easier to break a screen protector than smart phone glass.