Foldable iPad Could Arrive as Early as Next Year

Apple could be on track to release a foldable iPad as early as next year, according to supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. From a report: "I'm positive about the foldable iPad in 2024 and expect this new model will boost shipments and improve the product mix," he tweeted early Monday. Kuo expects it to be joined by a revamped iPad Mini, due to enter mass production in early 2024. Kuo didn't offer many new details on the rumored iPad foldable, but said that it will feature a "carbon fiber" kickstand produced by Chinese component manufacturer Anjie Technology.

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[poptopdrop]

Erm, that should read: "Or *retain* some of the unfavored many"

Shall I come in again ?

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[poptopdrop]

A good story.

And may the moron of a mod who thinks stories like this rate "Troll" please leave the site.

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[mobby_6kl]

Who wants a large scree in a smaller footprint?

A lot of people, I'd imagine. Of course it was all stupid when Samsung does it, the moment Tim Apple whips it out on stage, it will be the best invention of the decade.

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[JaredOfEuropa]

There were a couple of nice examples at CES: Tablets that fold up to half the size, and can be used either as one large screen, or half-folded with the bottom half serving as a full size (virtual) keyboard. The kind of thing that makes you go "wow", but if you think about it a little longer, how useful is that really? Switching modes is mostly useful for devices that you carry and use a lot. Not a tablet, but a phone that unfolds to double the screen size, I might go for that, Not if it's $2000 though.

Re:Who wants this?

[alvinrod]

It's stupid when both do it, but Apple might have a more polished offering as has often been the case historically. The iPhone wasn't even close to the first smartphone, but compared to the shit Microsoft was shoveling that had a goddamned Start button, Apple came off looking shiny and new.

If there's actually a market for this I suppose someone will sell these type of products, but I think it's a gimmick in search of a problem. Phones got considerably bigger and even Apple sells devices with huge screens now. Non-folding tablets are going to last a lot longer and for use around the home the folding displays don't have much practical advantage.

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[DontBeAMoran]

A gimmick in search of a problem? How about having smartphones smaller than the giant phones we ended up with, with rollable screens that expend to nearly as big as a small tablet?

Rollable screens that expand both on the left and right of a laptop screen would allow ultra-wide displays (21:9) while still being as small in folded mode as standard 16:9 or 16:10 laptops.

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[DontBeAMoran]

Folding displays look like crap with that stupid crease in the middle.
Roll-out displays, on the other hand, don't look as bad.

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[DrXym]

The answer is nobody really. But some people have more money than sense. And if folding iPads / iPhones ever become a thing then they will certainly cost stupid amounts of money just like those Samsung gadgets.

Re:Who wants this?

[UnknowingFool]

I would point out that this is a rumor about upcoming products. The analyst making this prediction has a spotty track record [appletrack.com] the last few years to me. Even the things that he got right are not huge earth shattering like "New iPhone will have faster, chip" as if newer iPhones got slower chips all the time. Bigger announcements like Apple AR released in 2021 did not come true.

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[DontBeAMoran]

Well, new Macs get slower SSDs than the previous generations thanks to bean-counter Tim, who prefers to save a few dollars per Mac instead of letting people get at least similar speeds than the previous generations. This is what happens when a company has to please shareholders instead of its actual customers.

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[UnknowingFool]

And this analyst has predicted it? Or has he predicted every new iPhone gotten a faster chip?

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[DontBeAMoran]

Most analysts pull numbers out of their asses and simply parrot what other companies are already doing. Since Apple usually wait for technology to catch up with requirements instead of rushing to market to be the first with a sub-par product, it's easy to make predictions. The iPod and iPhone are great proofs of that pattern. Also, CPU and GPU speeds almost always go up between generations of the same family of ICs, not down.

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[Darinbob]

It's been done. I've folded my old ipad a few times.

Useless feature

[DarkRookie2]

Features I want in phones
1. Stupidly long battery life.
2. A non shit OS.

Re: Useless feature

[tele]

Well, you should be happy then that the rumor is about iPads :-)

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[DarkRookie2]

This will trickle down to them soon enough.

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[mobby_6kl]

Features I want in phones
1. Stupidly long battery life.
2. A non shit OS.

Well you're in luck, because such a phone already exists!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

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[DarkRookie2]

I said non shit OS. Where are the meme? The podcasts? The music player? The keyboard with the spelling correction that isn't T9 since that only works if you know how to spell the word.

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[mobby_6kl]

Exactly. No bullshit to get in the way, no spying, no updates to fix shit broken by previous updates.

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[cob666]

Well you're in luck, because such a phone already exists!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

Man, who didn't want one of these when The Matrix first came out and Neo took the call on it?

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[istartedi]

Features they want in *their* phone:

1. Shopping.
2. Surveillance.
3. Compliance.

Obey, slave.

First $3k ipad?

[Papaspud]

With a fold and a "carbon fiber kickstand-OH MY!", these are going to be VERY expensive.

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[DarkRookie2]

How is something that mostly made up of literally the 4th most common element in the universe so expensive.
It is like diamonds. Sure they are pretty, but they are just carbon.

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[sid crimson]

How is something that mostly made up of literally the 4th most common element in the universe so expensive.

It is like diamonds. Sure they are pretty, but they are just carbon.

I believe Aluminum is pretty common too, and based upon the build cost of airplanes cheaper than carbon fiber. Perhaps small "kickstands" are easier, but watching them build airliner parts out of carbon fiber appears to be more labor intensive compared to their aluminum counterparts. /shrug/

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[drinkypoo]

How is something that mostly made up of literally the 4th most common element in the universe so expensive.

Energy isn't free, and it takes a lot of it to make CF.

Re:First $3k ipad?

[UnknowingFool]

Just because carbon fiber is made from an abundant element does not mean it is easy to make. You could say that about anything. Why does a computer chip cost hundreds of dollars? It is made from silicon which is the most abundant element in the Earth's crust.

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[DontBeAMoran]

If all you're doing with a tablet is Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime then yes, a Fire Tablet is a cheaper option. I have one myself, but I only use it for streaming videos, a bit of web browsing and ordering things from Amazon. It takes incredibly crap photos and pretty much sucks doing anything else than streaming. But for a streaming tablet, you can't beat the price.

Analyst Track Record

[MrRuffles]

There are frequent posts like this one taking at face value an analyst’s prediction and commenting on it as if it’s gospel. (Not just for Apple but for other companies as well.) Has anyone looked at the track record of the analysts to see how accurate their intel has been in the past?

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[DontBeAMoran]

There's sheeps on all sides, for all products and all brands. What I can't understand is why the fuck would someone waste money to buy anything that runs Android.

Re: But the sheep will jump on it.

[SleepingEye]

Cheaper, more customizable, equally spyware (Google just admits they do), more variety to match your tastes? Nobody gives a shit about os updates. It's much easier to get hostile code into the app store and play stores than finding a jailbreak (security vulnerability)

I'll believe it when I see it

[sloth jr]

Analysts are wrong many times. I don't need to hang the moon on the might-be of any company's product line.

Why fold if you still can't pocket?

[erice]

In principle, I think folding phones is a great idea. But it has to fold down to a size that facilitates easy carrying. It need to fit in a pocket. But there is no way an Ipad is going to fold down to pocket size unless they do a double fold and I don't think that is likely at this stage. So what is the point?

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[DontBeAMoran]

People keep saying this, but there's not even standard "pocket sizes", such as ISO paper (A4, etc).