Comment by _bxg1 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by _bxg1 | Hacker News Reader

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Android is working on OS-level support for folding displays. This one's early, and will have limited support from apps, but I don't think the category will die as a gimmick. It has genuine utility, it's just been a technological hurdle. Personally, I'll wait another couple years for Apple to refine it a bit.

Also, the smartphone market has started saturating and device makers are clamoring for a feature - any feature - that will get people to buy new ones. This has resulted in lots of little useless features as they attempt to differentiate, but here we have an actually super useful feature which is costly to implement and will induce real gadget-envy for the first time in years. So there's going to be a gold rush behind it.

If they are working from the OS side that’s perfect. But I Im no way expecting to see anything but the most important apps have useful multi-app-in-screen interactions. Yeah YouTube, FB, Search, w/e but will that make it worth it?

Sort of like the Touch Bar on MacBook Pros (which I have). Yeah it’s awesome to have on select apps like Photoshop, Safari, etc but it’s in no way so valuable as to build a whole product around - like this phone is trying to do.

You can take the Touch Bar away from me at any moment and I won’t mind.

Unless apps deeply integrate with this folding capability etc its just a gimmick that I expect will die pretty quick or remain a very niche product.

> useful multi-app-in-screen interactions.

I use multiapp all the time on my current phone. I love it. Android makes it easy to move in and out of multiapp mode, swiping the separator when you want to go back to full screen. Many android apps already support this feature.

This is the same thing, except with a larger screen & different panel arrangement.

The only specialized support it really needs has less to do with folding and more to do with toggling between two different screens without problems and while maintaining context, which they already seem to have nailed. Everything beyond that is just building on things that are already relevant for normal tablets, like multitasking.

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