Ah, the Samsung Galaxy Fold. “Be the first to see the future”, says Samsung.

Ah, the Huawei Mate X. “Meet the unprecedented”, says Huawei^[1].

Here they are, the fabled foldable phones. The next thing a lot of tech people are hastily calling ‘the future’. But are they foldable phones? From where I stand, I see these more as foldable tablets — you fold something so that it takes up less space, after all. Maybe I’ll call them unfoldable phones, because they can be opened or spread out from a folded position. This is what you do when you unfold something.

If my pedantry is already making your eyes roll, you’re exactly experiencing my current degree of enthusiasm towards these devices. Is it the price what’s killing my excitement? Not at all. Price is, for now, the least of my concerns.

My tech-savvy friends and acquaintances are already teasing me: Oh, you’re not excited about this, why am I not surprised!? I’ll ask here what I asked them. Let’s turn the tables for a moment and let me ask you, Why are you excited about foldable devices? What makes you think they are the Next Big Thing?

In his short piece on the subject, Matt Birchler concludes:

I say all this because I think it’s important to get excited about this sort of technological advancement. I know some people have a “if it’s not ready for Apple, then it’s not ready period” attitude towards tech, and I find that attitude very tiresome. It leads to simply mocking everything anyone else does, and then backtracking when Apple adopts that same tech soon after. See big phones. See the notch. See wireless charging. You get it.

I’d say it’s important to approach technology with an increasing degree of critical thinking, because I’m personally fed up with all the current “It’s new and it’s cool and it’s the future” spoon-feeding in tech. I don’t have the attitude Matt mentions. I honestly don’t care where the innovation comes from. What I care about is questioning whether something is truly innovative or just novel. And at this stage I’m not entirely ready to call these foldable devices ‘innovative’.

What problem do they solve?

From the reactions I’ve read around the Web, the answer seems easy — It’s like having a 2‑in‑1 convertible device but even more portable. It’s like having a smartphone and a tablet always with you. 

That sounds cool on the surface. Assuming that most people today carry with them smartphones with 6‑inch displays on average, how many times do you think they’ve found themselves wanting a bigger display when out and about? “Man, I wish I had a tablet now to do [insert task]!” Sure, there are cases where extending the screen on the fly could help, but are they enough to make people want to carry a cumbersome foldable device with them?

But these devices are cumbersome today, Rick — you object — Just wait a few years…

Remember in 2010, the debate following the introduction of the iPad? The Post-PC era? Just wait a few years, and everyone will be replacing their computer with a tablet. Almost ten years have passed, and that hasn’t happened. Again, just because something “will be better” it doesn’t necessarily mean it will revolutionise the status quo.

It’s typical for technology advancements to progressively integrate solutions and produce devices that incorporate features of other devices as to reduce the number of discrete devices needed to perform a series of tasks. If in the 1990s we were carrying a portable CD player to listen to music, a camera to take photos, a newspaper and maybe a book for our reading needs, a mobile phone for calls and text messages, and then other stuff such as a calculator, a notebook, a planner, maybe a city map, etc., now we can just carry a smartphone to do all that. Not only has the smartphone unified such disparate objects and their purposes, it has done so increasingly brilliantly, often offering a degree of usefulness and versatility far superior than the one of the devices it replaced.

Now, foldable devices. You can have a phone that can act as a (small) tablet if need be. More specifically, a phone with a 4.6‑inch screen (Galaxy Fold) or 6.6‑inch screen (Mate X) that turns into a bigger device with a 7.3‑inch or 8‑inch screen, respectively. Is that modest increase in screen real estate enough to transform these smartphones into useful tablets? Ehh, I don’t know. 

Another related issue to evaluate: do these foldable phones actually become good tablets? What about the user experience? What about the software? Is Android flexible enough to provide a seamless user experience? Do apps just ‘inflate’ and adapt to the bigger screen when switching modes or is the system smart enough to optimise them? Are transitions seamless or will apps lose your position when you switch display modes? You’re using the device in tablet mode and you get a call. You want to answer by first folding the device back into phone mode. Is it going to be a smooth interaction? Will the UI reposition graciously or will it reshuffle elements so that you’ll have to wait a second for the icons and buttons to readjust before answering the call? 

I can’t stress enough the importance of providing a smooth user experience and interaction here, both when going from phone to tablet mode, and vice-versa. Have you ever unfolded a map or the leaflet inside a medicine’s package, only to struggle with it when it’s time to fold it back after use? You don’t want to create a similar frustration with the UI of a foldable device. 

Those who are excited about these devices point out two other bonuses of having access to a bigger screen on the fly: one, multitasking; and two, a better gaming experience (this latter example seems to have Dave Lee convinced about foldable phones). These are not bad points, but again, even when unfolded, these displays still look too small to me to offer a comfortable multitasking experience; and if you are a serious gamer, are you sure a foldable device is what you’re looking for?

Maybe it’s just me. But I’ve tried to recapture the feeling I had when I first saw a product that would become revolutionary. Every time something just clicked inside of me and produced a sort of a‑ha! moment. When I played with a bondi blue iMac G3 twenty years ago (goodness gracious, it’s been twenty years already…), I immediately thought that it would become a huge deal. When the first iPod came out, while I wasn’t personally interested in getting one straight away, I quickly realised its potential, and soon it was clear to me that the iPod would remarkably change the way we listen to music. When I finally bought one in 2003, it immediately transformed my listening habits on the go. 

And before getting to the iPhone itself, when I first saw Jefferson Han’s Multi-Touch Interaction Research in 2006 (there are videos on YouTube, like this one), I had no doubts that such technology was simply too compelling to just pass unnoticed. I kept seeing so many possible use cases and scenarios. When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone in 2007, I was blown away. And not because it was Apple. I was blown away because I didn’t think it was possible to implement multi-touch technology on such a small display so smoothly while maintaining its intuitiveness, practicality, and usefulness. 

Foldable phones? I watched Samsung’s unveiling and demo. I watched videos of the Huawei Mate X in action. And instead of going a‑ha! I went… meh. Are they cool? Yes. Do they have some sort of wow factor? A bit, yeah, though I suspect it gets old quickly.

But you know what? All I kept thinking while watching those demos was gimmick. Gimmick gimmick gimmick. Oh look, it folds and unfolds, it has screens everywhere… How usable is all that, really? How long do those hinges remain tight-as-new? (For other possible hardware-related issues, and an intriguing take on the whole topic, check out TechAltar’s video How Huawei beat Samsung with a worse foldable).

What is the target audience? Apart from technophiles, I mean. People whose only computer is a smartphone! — you say — They could make the most of such foldable devices. Yeah, sure. Maybe! Or maybe they’ll complain that these foldable phones are too awkward and bulky to operate and carry around (even folded). Don’t look at me, it’s what I usually overhear in stores when people evaluate phones like the iPhone XS Max or the Galaxy Note 9. On Twitter, Nick Heer shared a thought with me: …As prices come down, I have a feeling that bendy phones could be popular in countries where smartphones are most people’s only computers. It’s possible, but prices really have to come down, because even an iPhone SE is considered rather expensive in those countries.

What other kind of users could be wanting these devices? “People who want both a phone and a tablet in a single device” could be a candidate category, but again I wonder: would 2–2.5 inches more in display size (from phone to tablet) make enough difference for these users to convince them they’re getting the best of both worlds? Too early to say, I guess. Still, when I take my walks in the city centre, when I take the bus or the metro, and see people with big smartphones (say, in the 6 to 6.4‑inch range), such phones look pretty much tablet‑y to me. I see people browse the Web, read ebooks, chat, play games, check directions, and the screen real estate already looks ample enough for the person to perform such tasks comfortably. What do those extra 2–2.5 inches of unfolded screen really add to the experience? 

Another possible target audience: “People who want both a phone and a tablet but don’t want to spend as much money as they would if they purchased the two devices separately”. Well, these people too will have to wait for the prices of foldable phones to go down, because for now they pretty much cost like a regular smartphone and a tablet. If I had €2,000 to spend, I’d certainly get an iPhone and an iPad instead of these ‘transformers’.

Speaking of Apple, I really hope they approach this smartly. No, I don’t mean “I hope they make a truly great foldable phone”; I mean “I hope they stop and think whether it’s a good idea to make a foldable phone in the first place”. I don’t want a better foldable phone from Apple, I want a better idea. I want a better solution. I want Apple to stop me in my tracks with something that makes me go a‑ha!, like it happened in the past.

Finally, am I really that unimpressed by these new devices? Well, I’d say that bendable and foldable displays are certainly worth paying attention to and getting excited over, for the possibilities they open. But foldable phones seem to be a first myopic implementation of an otherwise very promising technology.