Bart Y

Yep, if on IOS Apple Store App, it’s down.  If on Apple.com, hit buy for anything and it’s down too.  As of 6:30am PDT.

avon b7 said:

Bart Y said:

Here’s the link, hope it posts:

https://eu.community.samsung.com/t5/forums/searchpage/tab/message?advanced=false&allow_punctuation=false&filter=location&location=category%3Auk&q=Samsung+fold

Your link returns just 823 results which cover the entire gamut of issues from Samsung Pay through to battery life. 

It is your standard support issue listing that could apply to any phone from any manufacturer. 

Like I said, nothing indicates any model is plagued by issues. 

Well, for a €1500+ device, reliability should be first rate and if you search through for Fold Screen or Fold Display, and similarly for Flip, many many people with documented issues, some even your own countrymen.  Lots of additional posts in various other EU languages so there may be many more than a simple English search pulls up.  IMO, there are problems but the public hasn’t made the press aware…yet.  If frustration and dissatisfaction builds high enough, this may turn into a big problem, not only from an engineering standpoint, but a customer care and retention perspective.  

Marvin said:

red oak said:

There is almost zero evidence any of these foldable phones (including the ones from Samsung) sell in any measurable volume

According to Samsung, the volume of foldable phones was 10 million in 2021:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/20/23272029/samsung-tm-roh-foldable-phones-mainstream

The following says the Galaxy Z Flip made up 4.6 million:

https://www.phonearena.com/news/galaxy-z-flip-3-5g-most-shipped-foldable-2021_id139154

The Z Fold and Huawei P50 were the next best sellers. Likely somewhere around 2 million each.

Most of the foldables are for the compact phone like the old Razr phones and not like the foldable tablets. There are probably some of the over 100 million people who bought the old style flip phones and liked the form factor.

This is a lower sales volume than the iPhone mini. If Apple wanted to cater to the audience for compact phones, they could just keep making the iPhone mini series.

Bending any glass means making it weaker and it will crease.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1j8J1FDJOw

The Verge article states two research firms believe the total market sales to be much lower, 7.1-7.9M units.  IMO, Samsung’s TM Roh is saving face or trying to inflate the numbers because Samsung has a dominant position in Foldables for now, and of course, starting from a small number, it’s easy to get huge % increases to bigger but still relatively small numbers.  For now, Foldables have “maybe” equaled the old Note line and “maybe” the S22 Ultra+ has also equaled the old Note lines of about 5-6M annual sales from 2019 prepandemic, total of 11-14M would be ecstatic for Samsung, but I’m not sure there’s evidence for that yet.  Today’s Unpacked announcement will try to frame the Foldables market size I’m sure.

red oak said:

There is almost zero evidence any of these foldable phones (including the ones from Samsung) sell in any measurable volume

Anyone who thinks Apple is now “ too far behind” is someone you need to avoid on all things Apple 🍎 

Roughly, the “measurable” Foldables volume is about 7-9M units total market in 2021, with Samsung maybe 85% of that total.  So about 6M-7.65M for Samsung.  Given we know Flip 3 sells 70% to Fold 3 30%, extrapolates to 4.2M-5.3M Flip models and 1.8M-2.3M Fold models over the Samsung sales season.  If my post above about reliability and customer service  issues reported by Samsung users in their own community discussion boards is true, there’s problems still which eventually will catch up with Samsung.

Anyway, 6-9M is a terribly low number of market units to commit R&D, parts sourcing (especially fragile, low reliability and availability Samsung units), and production for Apple IF it’s to meet Apple’s standards for reliability, longevity, quality, and functionality.  Better to wait till Apple and suppliers perfect this further and even then whether it still makes any sense financially or reputation wise.  

avon b7 said:

" Many of the first foldable devices were plagued by reliability issues"

I'm unaware of any foldable phone being plagued with reliability issues. Quite the opposite is true.

AFAIK, all folding phones that have come to market have had great reliability so far. 

For the Samsung Fold, many review units were damaged by reviewers trying to remove a screen coating that should not have been removed.

Once that was corrected, along with some further design enhancements, the units that were released performed well.

Uh, here’s a link to (or search for) the EU Samsung Community pages, search it for Samsung Fold.  You’ll find many many issues with the display screen, delamination of the built in screen protector, cracking of the display in cold weather, etc., not just the Fold 3 but also Flip 3.  Plus huge customer support issues trying to get warranty repairs and then having Samsung, their repair agent, or carrier blame the user for damage or abuse and charging them huge €€€ for repairs.

I’m guessing probably the same on US Samsung Community.  I’ll link in next post.