It’s cool, indeed<\/a>.)<\/p>\nSamsung’s phone has a suggested price of BRL 12,600 in Brazil (~USD 2.4k). The iPhone Duo will arrive here for a cool R$ 22,000 (~USD 4.3K). Even the prices abroad are startling \u2014 US$ 1,800 and US$ 2,000, respectively.<\/p>\n
I’ve been thinking about the audience for this type of device, if it even exists. I mean, beyond influencers, tech youtubes and show-offs in general. I’m talking about people who convince themselves that a phone that folds and costs twice as much as the most expensive conventional models is worth it.<\/p>\n
The big promise of foldable phones is that they unfold (!) into a tablet. The outer screen is limited to the uses of a regular phone, and the inner one is for activities that benefit from more screen real estate, like watching videos (in landscape), reading documents and using two apps at the same time.<\/p>\n
Given this proposition, the biggest rivals of foldables are phones and tablets sold separately by the manufacturers themselves. You can buy an iPhone and an iPad for the same amount or, depending on the combination, for much less than Apple is asking for the iPhone Duo. The same goes for Samsung.<\/p>\n
Our target audience shrinks, then, to those who need or want to have both devices \u2014 phone and tablet \u2014 accessible at all times. What’s the profile of this hypothetical consumer?<\/p>\n
They exist, I’m sure of it. It’s quite common to run into people who have only a phone as their internet access device. People who do everything on the small screen: watch videos, read books, even work and write documents. For this person, the large inner screen would be welcome. (I still find it awkward to do these things on a tablet, but less so than on a phone.)<\/p>\n
The piece that doesn’t fit, in this case, is the price. Someone who only has a phone to handle the digital demands of modern life, almost by definition, doesn’t have more the money to spend on a foldable phone, no matter how good it is. If they had that, they would have bought a laptop or tablet long before.<\/p>\n
The question remains: who are foldable phones for? The only profile left is that of show-offs. Which might even be a good thing \u2014 the iPhone Duo as an identifier of unpleasant people. See one in someone’s hands? Run, it’s a trap!<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Two addenda.<\/p>\n
Personally, I find it bizarre that this kind of thing draws so much attention at a moment when humanity is starting to realize it’s suffering from screen fatigue. The temptation of a large screen on the little screen we already carry with us all the time can only make this screen addiction (or compulsion) worse.<\/p>\n
That is, of course, if people actually open the foldable phone as often as the manufacturers’ marketing suggests. I hold, based on pure guesswork, that the outer screen ends up being used most of the time, given the ~friction involved in opening the device. And then you’re left with an awkward, heavy phone, since it’s two little bricks \u2014 the Galaxy Z Fold8 weighs 201g and the iPhone Duo, 254g.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Apple has entered the foldable phone market. Which got me thinking about the audience for this kind of device \u2014 if there even is one. People who convince themselves that a phone that folds and costs double the most expensive conventional models is worth it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65311,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_locale":"en_US","_original_post":"https:\/\/manualdousuario.net\/?p=65309"},"categories":[1575],"tags":[48,775,1199,271,2308,1556,16],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/manualdousuario.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65314"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/manualdousuario.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/manualdousuario.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manualdousuario.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manualdousuario.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65314"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/manualdousuario.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65315,"href":"https:\/\/manualdousuario.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65314\/revisions\/65315"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manualdousuario.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/manualdousuario.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manualdousuario.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manualdousuario.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}