The iPhone 16 is living in the past. It needs to fold

Apple’s “Glowtime” event is over, and all rumors about the iPhone 16 have either been confirmed or dispelled. The iPhone 16 family offers big improvements over previous models, but for all intents and purposes, it remains just an iPhone. Apple’s AI is interesting and the camera control button is a cool new feature, but compared to its competitors, Apple is still living in the past when it comes to its vision for the iPhone.

The foldable phone is no longer a rare newcomer to the market. Google, Honor, Motorola, OnePlus, and Samsung have foldable models of their flagship devices that sell tens of millions of devices each year. Just hours after Apple announced the iPhone 16 family, Huawei unveiled the world’s first iPhone 16 triple foldable phone.

In the absence of any advances in foldable displays, Apple is seriously behind in its ability to recognize the future of mobile technology. In short, it needs to fold.

The best of both worlds

Consumers and critics alike have praised how the increased screen real estate of foldable phones improves their media consumption and gaming on the devices. It makes perfect sense: Would you rather watch a YouTube video or play Cal of Duty on a screen the size of an iPhone 16 Pro Max or an 8-inch widescreen?

Huawei

Huawei

Huawei

You’d probably prefer a bigger screen, but as iPad users know, it’s not that much fun trying to carry such a behemoth in your back pocket. That’s the beauty of the foldable phone. Looking at the OnePlus Open, for example, its 7.82-inch main display folds down to a tidy 6.31-inch form factor. Huawei’s pocket-friendly Mate XT Ultimate Design opens up into a massive 10.2-inch tablet, which is almost as much screen space as the 10th-gen iPad.

Foldable phones offer the best of both worlds. They offer a large screen when unfolded. This is great for multitasking, media consumption, and gaming, but their compact size when folded makes them easy to slip into pockets and bags. There are some issues, of course, the main one being the visible crease in the center of the screen, but this is where Apple’s innovation can take over and change the game. Apple has been perfecting the smartphone and leading the pack for nearly 20 years, and the iPhone 16 is the latest pinnacle of refinement of that original design. But foldable screens open the door to so much more.

Multitouch on steroids

Foldable phones allow you to switch between different modes depending on the task at hand. You can unfold it for tablet-like productivity and fold it back for a traditional phone interface. This flexibility enhances your productivity and entertainment experience.

Imagine being able to use split-screen mode, one of the multitasking features available on the iPad, on your iPhone. You’d never dare try that, even on an iPhone 16 Pro Max in landscape orientation. Sure, that 6.9-inch display is the largest any iPhone has ever had to date, but it still doesn’t have enough screen real estate to comfortably use two apps side by side, which is why Apple still hasn’t made split-screen available in iOS 18.

A foldable iPhone could be a game changer, bringing the productivity advances of the iPad into your back pocket, waiting for you to take advantage of them. You could run multiple apps at once without ever feeling cramped by the screen size. The same goes for the iPad’s other multitasking methods, including Slide Over and Stage Manager. With a foldable screen, the iPhone won’t be limited by what can fit in our pockets. Foldable phones open up a world of opportunities for iOS and iPadOS, not just with multitasking, but also with app design, integration, and interoperability.

Luc Baker

Luc Baker

Luc Baker

Call for innovation

As candy bar-style phones push the boundaries of design, Samsung, Huawei, Google and other smartphone makers are already seeing foldable phones drive innovation in the mobile industry. These devices are moving away from the static design of the classic smartphone with increasingly thin and sleek designs.

Apple used to deliver innovations like this with almost every new device. That hasn’t happened lately. Like previous generations, the iPhone 16 is marked by incremental performance upgrades, internal camera upgrades, and under-display improvements. Sure, the Action button and camera controls are nice, but a new button is hardly exciting in the way that foldable phones are. Instead, Huawei stole the show from Apple with a phone that is Really innovative.

igamesnews

igamesnews

igamesnews

It’s clear that Apple has been left out of the game so far. Early foldable phones had a lot of issues, were much thicker than other smartphones and tablets, and didn’t solve a problem that most people had. However, after years of development, the landscape is changing. As foldable display technology has improved, so has the durability of these devices. Innovations in flexible display materials and hinge mechanisms are helping to streamline designs and address concerns about long-term wear and tear. And advances in AI and interface are giving foldable phones a real purpose.

Apple has the resources and talent to push these advances even further, and rumors have suggested that the company has been experimenting with foldable devices for some time. But the prevailing rumor is that Apple’s first foldable will be an iPad or MacBook that opens up to form a larger iPad rather than something that can fit in a pocket. That’s a mistake: A foldable iPhone would not only be a high-priced niche device, it would propel the iPhone into a new era of productivity.

A foldable iPhone will reignite excitement for Apple’s best-selling gadget with next-generation technology that customers can see and feel, not just under-the-hood improvements they may never need. Apple was once the plucky startup that pushed the boundaries of what a PC can do, and now it’s time to do the same with the iPhone. The iPhone 16 shows that Apple is more than capable of making a fantastic phone, packed with speed and features. But the future beckons.