radarthekat

doggone said:

When Pharma companies outsource R&D to China they have monitors embedded into the site.  This is necessary to ensure the work is done correctly and there is no fraud in generating data when developing molecules.
Apple could use the same approach - have Apple personnel on site to monitor activity, identify issues as they occur as well as work on long term issues that take time to resolve.  Apple already have engineers on site so they know how to do this.  Even if the cost was in the hundreds of millions, the effect on the bottom line would be minimal.  

Apple - Will it fold?

My John Oliver impression...

Last week Samsung introduced a future-thinking folding phone.  Future-thinking in that nobody at present can think of a single reason why we’d want a phone that when folded has a small narrow display and is nearly two and a half times thicker than an iPhone.  Future-thinking in that someone, someday, might think of a reason we want a small square tablet with a screen that when touched reminds us of a giant 1980’s membrane switch.

I know, I know, my Apple wool is preventing me from seeing the brilliance of Samsung’s move.  All I’m able to perceive here is an attempt to be first.  On that score Samsung has won yet another round, another pyrrhic victory for their side of the ledger.  And yes, Apple may follow, but not down the same trail Samsung is blazing.  For Apple to offer a foldable phone, there still exists some real challenges:

Appropriate hardware technology would have to be available.  

First, the display would need to be covered with a non-malleable and scratch-resistant surface; there’s little chance Apple would return to a malleable and markable, plastic display cover.  The challenge is that the necessary display properties are, of course, incompatible with folding and are likely to remain so.  

Next, the phone when folded will need to be as ready to hand, and pocket, as current iPhones, to which any foldable iPhone, in folded configuration, will be ruthlessly compared.  The rumor that Apple may bolster battery capacity in the 2019 models could result in thicker iPhones, which would help in a comparison of a future foldable model.  Apple would be setting the stage for a thicker handset with a meaningful enhancement to justify it.  But it would still be a significant challenge to then add a second screen layer and not significantly increase the thickness.  Perhaps a flattened battery on one side of the fold and all the electronics and cameras on the other fold.  Not sure if Samsung did that, or if it’s even viable.

Next there’s the reliability aspect.  iPhones, and high-end Android phones, are all very solidly constructed these days, with few or no moving parts.  But that doesn’t imply even today’s phones are free of physical wear and tear or immune to extreme conditions.  Extreme cold or heat will be significant issues to account for in selecting materials and designing folding phones to yield a similar lifespan compared to their non-folding counterparts.  For iPhones that implies a five- or six-year lifespan.  Not to mention tensile stresses of the folding process itself.

The only viable solution my limited brain can conceive is two separate displays, each pressed up hard against a lip on a hinge to prevent dust or cookie crumbs intruding.  As the phone unfolds, at the last part of the arc, that lip recedes, allowing the two screen edges to come together perfectly, leaving not a single pixel width gap between.  How incredibly precise would such a mechanism need to be... boggles the mind.  But if it worked, every time, for five or six years, it would allow two glass-covered displays to perfectly come together as one, without a visible seam.  

Finally, Apple would need to do one more thing that Samsung has not yet accomplished.  Apple would need to determine the reason such a needlessly complex handset should exist.  That’s where I take my bet off the table.  I’m betting Apple goes a different direction.