Flips and Folds
By: M.G. Siegler
Tags: Galaxy Fold, 4til40, Tech, Samsung, Galaxy Flip

Flips and Folds

I love gadgets. Some might say that I’m a gadget fiend. Certainly, my wife would, who routinely secretly throws out some of my gadgets knowing that I likely won’t notice. But sometimes I do. Those aren’t great days. Anyway, my love of Apple products has long been known, first and foremost as I was reporter for a number of years writing about such things.

But clearly in recent years I would say that I’m more critical and skeptical of Apple, as I’ve long said I would be if I feel like it was warranted. I feel like it is, except that I also still believe their products to be by far and away the best. Obviously, that’s subjective, but I trust my taste and my gut. Apple, for the most part, still makes the best tech products. There are a number of reasons for this — at a high level, the union of hardware and software — but I’m sometimes surprised that I’m not at least intrigued by other gadgets.

Take, for example, the most recent stuff Samsung just announced. The Galaxy Z Fold 3, the Galaxy Z Flip 3, the Galaxy Buds 2, and the Galaxy Watch 4. We’ll put aside the branding nightmare for a moment — they have two ‘3s’, a ‘2’, and a ‘4’ all released in the same event — and I’ll just note that reading the descriptions of these products could not entice me to even try any of these.

Part of it is because I am wedded to the Apple ecosystem and it would be a huge pain in the ass to switch. But again, I love gadgets, I would do it if the gadget were great. I once switched from diehard Windows lover to Mac, after all! But here, all of these devices just still seem inferior or worse, gimmicky.

I’ve long been on the record about this with regard to the Folds and Flips, and disastrous roll-out aside, I’m sure they’re getting better. But I still just have no desire for such a form factor? What’s the use case that really pushes the need for this type of device? (Same with Microsoft’s Surface Duo, by the way.) It’s still in the phone-that-folds phase, which just makes for a fatter phone in your pocket rather than a larger one. I suspect when — and it will be when, of course — Apple enters this market, they’ll only do so if they can come up with some use-case with software suited for it.

It’s a big part of the reason why Android tablets have not worked. And all the Apple Watch competitors, to a lesser extent (which is why Samsung and Google are working more directly together here on the Galaxy Watch 4). The software just isn’t there. Apple may fail in the foldable world as well, but they’ll make some compelling software for it, no doubt.

Samsung is trying to market their way to success here. I happen to be traveling, which means I actually have television (whereas at home, we long ago “cut the cord”), and the company is pushing these new devices non-stop here in the UK, just a few days after announcement. It will undoubtedly work to some extent — at the very least, they look different, if not interesting — but I doubt it works to the point of massive success. Again, why do these exist?

Also, if the 5th iteration of the Fold isn’t called the Galaxy Ben FoldZ 5, we’ve all failed.