Technology

The marketing about it being an incredibly thin phone was a misstep - it just looked absurd to have such a chunky lump stuck onto it, and it felt very much like they were attempting a have cake / eat cake situation by claiming it had incredible camera stats (which werent very good) to justify the bump on an otherwise amazingly thin phone, and then that giant electronics bump had an external lens on it too.

Had it just been an ugly phone, I doubt it would have met with anywhere near the same criticism, but all the adcopy about how thin it was overtop of photos where you could see it had a giant lump on it felt really dishonest, and if this article is accurate it may count among the biggest apple flops ever.

(The thickness may just need to be accepted at this point. The S25 Ultra is 8.2mm, which is thinner than the Air if you include the bump. It seems like the camera wasnt the issue then, but that they hamstrung their design team with their drive for a thin phone. What elegance might even an extra millimeter of chassis space produced?)

making an extremely thick phone

lol how is 11mm extremely thick

No thicker than very popular and successful phones from just 5 years ago. They can use the extra space for a larger battery, so they dont have to nerf performance to maintain stability in older phones. They can also use the space to restore repairability.

But probably not for a folding phone, since making both sides that thick will probably be too much.

But it's not stupid thin, it's got a giant lump on it?

They've also become really, really good at outsourcing R&D to other companies. This lets them outsource the expense of trial and error, and swoop down with a mature product once everyone else has paid for it.

15 years ago they famously patented, and then leaked that they were working on a fingerprint reader authentication method, and then they watched the Android manufacturers bend over backwards to implement it so they could say they did it "first." In those early days of smartphones, being first to implement something and then claiming Apple copied it was a big deal for people who wanted to be first movers (today they are called "techbros"). Motorola Mobility ate the cost of R&D, was never able to recoup the costs, and ended up being sold to Google for their patent portfolio. By the time Apple released Touch ID two and a half years later, Motorola Mobility was a shell of itself, and ended up being sold a second time to Lenovo.

Foldable phones have been a thing for a while, and Apple just sat back and took notes on what everyone else was doing. Surface Duo killed Microsoft's last attempt at a mobile device. Now it's a relatively mature market (we have tri-fold phones for two years now and tablets that fold into a laptop with a bluetooth keyboard) and now Apple will swoop in and bring the rest of the market.

The money isn't in being a first mover; it's in making a reliable product that everyone can use. It shouldn't be lost on anyone that Apple made a trillion dollars while OpenBSD (upstream for a lot of Apple's ecosystem) struggled to pay its light bills.

"fast" follower? Are we talking about the same apple who just released 2006's windows Vista aero theme as a new design in 2025?

inconceivable!

Remove the whole phone and I’m touching grass

More of a fidget toy at that point. I’m in. I’d go as high as $8.

I’m not sure if it’s possible but a mini pro but with good battery life would be the ultimate phone for me personally. I’m basically always on my feet but use my phone a lot so a large battery is important, but I also want a small phone and a good camera. I doubt that’ll happen though.