Silly Season: iPhone 17 and foldable rumors

[Cmaier]

Supposedly a foldable iPhone and a 20” foldable “hybrid” (mac/ipad) device coming in a year or two:

Apple allegedly planning foldable 20.3-inch hybrid for 2025, foldable iPhone in 2026 - 9to5Mac

Apple is ramping up its work on foldable devices, according to a new investor note seen by 9to5Mac. The report,...

9to5mac.com

And iPhone 17 will have a “slim” variety and Pro Max version will have smaller dynamic island (supposedly):

iPhone 17 rumors: New design, 'Slim' model to replace 'Plus, more - 9to5Mac

Apple has big changes in store for next year’s iPhone 17 lineup, according to a new report from reliable Haitong...

9to5mac.com

 

[Citysnaps]

I'm skeptical with respect to both.

 

[Cmaier]

I'm skeptical with respect to both.

I believe the iphone 17 rumors. I figure if there is a ”slim” it will be because the bigger screen size allows a thinner battery to maintain the same volume. Though the “slim” name would be weird.

I also am beginning to believe that ipad/mac are going to converge (into what, I don’t know). I think at WWDC there may be signs of touch input in macos.

 

[Citysnaps]

Supposedly a foldable iPhone and a 20” foldable “hybrid” (mac/ipad) device coming in a year or two:

This isn't particularly relevant. Just noodling about recent Apple purchases and what would have been better for myself.

My wife recently purchased a 15.3" M3 MBA.

That's such a sweet handling/feeling laptop. It's significantly lighter, thinner, and much easier to handle than my 16" M2 MBP. And more useable than my 12.9" M1 iPad Pro (which I rarely use). I'd loose about 1/2" in both display width and height compared to my 16" MBP - which would be mice-nuts for me.

If I could roll back time and have a do-over, I'd just get the 15.3" M3 MBA and be happy - and save a lot of money. I'll never need more than two TB ports for my use.

 

[Herdfan]

I've played with the Samsung foldables and you can definitely see the fold line.

 

[Cmaier]

I've played with the Samsung foldables and you can definitely see the fold line.

Unless apple figures a way around that, I think they’d more likely do a multi-screen device with a fold between the screens. Foldable screens make a nice demo, but are shit to live with.

 

[Citysnaps]

I've played with the Samsung foldables and you can definitely see the fold line.

That's what I'd worry about.

Also my iPhone 15PM fits nicely in my shirt pocket and is easy to access. I think unfolding a foldable every time I wanted to use the phone (take/make calls, email, web, calendar, stocks, home automation and security cameras, taking photographs, etc.), something I do dozens of times a day, would get annoying.

 

[Yoused]

My wife recently purchased a 15.3" M3 MBA. That's such a sweet handling/feeling laptop.

There is way they could make it better, though. Those sidebars are just wide enough that they could put in a keypad in their place. I woud so approve of that.

 

[Citysnaps]

There is way they could make it better, though. Those sidebars are just wide enough that they could put in a keypad in their place. I woud so approve of that.

Sidebars meaning the areas left and right of the trackpad? Or left and right of the keyboard?

 

[swk9]

I've been playing with the latest Google Pixel Fold for a few days. I've tried the Samsung Fold models previously and weren't too keen on them but because the Pixel Fold was so heavily discounted, same price as the base regular iPhone 16, I thought I'd buy it to evaluate and give it to my parents who would appreciate the larger screen as they mostly watch YouTube on their phones and don't really need any of Apple-specific features.

The build quality for the price I've paid is excellent and while the Samsung is more streamlined I like the quirkiness of the Pixel Fold and think the Google phone even feels slightly better. More importantly the outer screen is almost the size of a regular large phone that's wider than the Samsung's, which means easier typing for texters and just more usable in general without having to open it up. The overall dimension is pretty much an iPhone Pro Max phone with a protective case. It's slightly heavier than the Samsung Fold which is about the same weight as the iPhone 14 Pro Max but in person it feels about the same, likely because it's slightly bigger so I perceive it to be less "dense".

I'm still not so sure about the fold display. The pro I mentioned above already hinted at it but I like this phone more than the Samsung one because it's more usable as just a regular phone, which isn't exactly a ringing endorsement. Opening it up still takes time and some effort. The hinge is sturdy but the whole thing still feels a bit fragile and you wonder about its longevity, more so because I know Samsung Fold owners whose phone displays just broke out of nowhere. While I like the novelty of it, I still tend to reach my tablets and phones. It's just a more comfortable carefree experience using a fixed display device. The performance is decent but I feel like there are instances the processor just isn't powerful enough to be as smooth as the iPhone but I haven't done any testing on it. It's fast enough to be usable although I might not have felt the same had I paid the full price.

Having said I think Apple will make one because it makes too much business sense and Samsung and others have already have done a lot of work to show the viability of the product category. All that the extra real estate just cannot be denied and there will be customers who will pay the higher price for it. The square aspect ratio means it's not as big as you'd think it'd be for watching movies but it's still a big display and excellent for reading. Particularly if you're an older person with aging eyes. It might also bring nice Apple Pencil features onto iPhone and potentially Mac as well if that hybrid device is real.

Ironically the product I'm personally looking forward to now is the iPhone Air. I keep imagining how nice it'd be to use a phone that just has one side of this foldable beast that's half the thickness and the weight. We'll see what Apple delivers next year.

 

[The Flame]

This is apparently the frame of the iPhone 17 Pro:

x.com

x.com

New horizontal camera bar design.

 

[fischersd]

Yep - I could see it for those that just want a more portable iPad (and tend to use a folio anyways). What I don't get are the ones that opted for the square brick that folds out to the size of a regular phone. How is the thicker brick better in any way?!

 

[Cmaier]

This is apparently the frame of the iPhone 17 Pro:

View attachment 33131

x.com

x.com

New horizontal camera bar design.

How would spatial photos work? Would think you’d want horizontal lens separation in landscape orientation.

 

[Yoused]

How would spatial photos work? Would think you’d want horizontal lens separation in landscape orientation.

Perhaps they are adopting oversize square CCDs so that you can get decent widescreen or standard aspect images while holding it portrait, as most people do anyway.

 

[Cmaier]

Perhaps they are adopting oversize square CCDs so that you can get decent widescreen or standard aspect images while holding it portrait, as most people do anyway.

since the images are only viewable in their AR/VR goggles, i’m pretty sure they will remain focused on landscape for spatial photos/videos. I suspect that the lenses/sensors will not be in a straight line.

 

[mr_roboto]

This is apparently the frame of the iPhone 17 Pro:
New horizontal camera bar design.

Hmmm. If you look at the outer 'ring' of your iPhone, it's not one solid piece of metal, there's little plastic bands separating it into pieces. Each segment of the 'ring' is an antenna element, and they need electrical isolation from each other.

Not saying it's impossible for this to be legit, but it would be a huge departure from past iPhone designs, in ways a lot more fundamental than just the shape of the camera bump. Might just be someone's render.

 

[swk9]

The speculative renders looked like these

iPhone 17 Pro Already Rumored to Have These 8 New Features

While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch for 10 more months, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. ...

www.macrumors.com

It matches previous rumors that have been floating around for a while now. I'm most interested in how the "Air" will feel in my hand.

 

[Yoused]

I looked at a couple folders at BB some while back. There was one that folded on the vertical line, which made no sense to me. Then, another that folded as one might expect, which turned it into a square twice as thick. It looked to me like the screen would eventually crease.

As I see it, for a folder to make sense, the bottom half needs to be a quarter the thickness of upper half, which would contain all the circuitry. And something to prevent creasing. In the end, though, any way they do it will seem more like a gimmick than a useful feature.

 

[mr_roboto]

Just realized another problem with these rumored iPhone 17 designs.

In today's iPhones, there's three things in the Dynamic Island: an IR camera, an IR dot projector, and a visible-light camera. The layout depicted in both the supposedly leaked frame photograph and the whole-phone renders leaves no space for any of them. To see why, take a look at Lumafield's iPhone 16 Pro CT scan. You can zoom it in and out and rotate it around to get an idea of how everything's packed in:

Lumafield

X-ray vision for engineers: accessible, cloud-based CT analysis and inspection software.

voyager.lumafield.com

The current triangle camera layout lets Apple tuck all three front-facing sensors just above one of the three rear-facing cameras. This is why the triangle points to the right when you're looking at the back of the phone - if it was flipped, Apple would not have been able to cluster the front-facing sensors in the middle.

It's not an option to layer any of the front-facing sensors back-to-back with camera sensors; the lenses make both the cameras and front facing sensors too thick for that. Apple (and everyone else) isn't building camera bulges just for the hell of it.

I just don't see how putting the three big rear-facing sensors in a row across the top of the phone leaves enough space for the front-facing sensors. Or any space for them at all. Maybe I'm missing something, but my money's on the supposed leaked frame photo being a render too.

(BTW, the Lumafield scan also shows what I was talking about in my previous post -- the separation of the outer rim of the phone into separate metal antennas.)