About Our Galaxy Fold Teardown
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You don't need to be first, Apple has repeatedly claimed to have the first of its kind but it was always just a clever rebrand of an existing technology. Sure somethings they did do first but sometimes it takes Apple years to adopt something and they will still claim they did it first.
I actually don't care who does it first. Its who does it best that matters.
As is Apple
[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/630434/samsung-quarterly...
Samsung can't credibly claim that their software is a selling point; for Apple, it's an integral part of their business.
https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2018/03/19/apple-mi...
Also, there's a lot of display tech that Samsung has, so Apple would either have to license these, driving the component cost higher, or work around them, which seems quite difficult.
Current rumor is "there is a RF transmission issue that burns up the modem, quite literally, so then it won't read anymore. Can happen on any band. The software releases are supposed to prevent this from happening. But if your device has succumbed to this already, you're hosed." https://s4gru.com/forums/topic/7899-galaxy-s10-family-discus...
The First part is invention, the second part is innovation.
And yet people and media keep complaining about Apple will / might / could be late with Phablet, 5G, Folding Screen etc.... And being late will fall behind and damage the company. I could understand this coming from common people who are not well versed in tech, but tech journalist? They are either an idiot or making up stories for attention.
- construction site worker maps - office replacement of tablets - very small when folded smartphone - runners
If Apple doesn’t release one, it’s because the tech is too fragile, and that’s a huge signal worth waiting for if you’re on the fence.
or it could go the way it went with phablets or AMOLED -- two related display techs that are relevant to this particular tech.
> If Apple doesn’t release one, it’s because the tech is too fragile
or Apple doesn't understand the tech, or doesn't know how to package and market it.
This seems like the first actual bit of interesting innovation in smartphones in about a decade..
So it's not only "who does it best".
Of course, this means that competitors probably have hands-on with your device as well.
Edit: See below comment for insight into situation
Apple has managed to convince a huge number of people to pay premium prices for average hardware and software that often loses features with each new release. Any company on the planet would be thrilled to be in that position.
How do you figure? It would be a huge win for consumers, but all it would accomplish is making Apple compete more. There's still more blue ocean to grab, no need to bloody the waters just yet.
The technology alone doesn't mean that much.
Most really amazing products and inventions are constructed out of technological building blocks that already existed. The Mac, the iPhone, Bitcoin, and many others that I'm forgetting. Existing technology, applied together with judgement about the way it can actually be used by The Rest Of Us, for lack of a better term.
Fun fact: Not one cryptographic primitive in Bitcoin was less than (IIRC) 7 years old when Bitcoin was first released.
We probably won't see any foldables from Apple for a long while, but, when they do release one with few cosmetic changes here and there, you are right that their loyal customers would all rise and praise it as a first breakthrough innovation.
The 2018 iPad Pro, the super-premium professional's device, still doesn't have mouse support. It's marketed with the quote "What's a computer?" which is a bit ironic.
I would like mouse support on the iPad as much as anyone else here, but it's still a very bold assumption to say it needs to have a mouse to be called "professional". It only takes a few minutes in any large airport to see real professionals using iPads for real work.
> Accepting this new reality – that an iPad can't manage local files and folders like a Mac – took time and dedication. If you don't adapt – if you think you can force iOS to be more like the Mac's Finder – you're going to have a bad experience in your transition to iOS.
I think people's expectations of a 'professional' device include not having to adapt their workflow to suit the device's inherent half-baked approach.
I do see people using iPad Pros for work. The head of my division is one of them. Unsurprisingly, he uses it to respond to emails and swipe through slide decks people send him. So basically, exactly like an iPad or even a $300 Android tablet. I'd wager there are 10x more users like him using iPad Pros than there are people using the Apple Pencil to do SVG or print design in Procreate or Affinity Publisher, apps that are actually tailor made for the ipad Pro.
[0]: https://www.macstories.net/stories/one-year-of-ipad-pro/2/
Is mouse support required for something to be considered a computer? Recall that computers existed before mice and professionals still managed to use them.
It's worth noting that the iPad does support pointing devices, just not mice. You probably have more than one of those pointing devices attached to your body at all times. The iPad also supports an implement that mimics something professionals have been using to draft blueprints and create art for millennia.
"What's a computer?" clearly bombed as a commercial tagline, but it raises an interesting point. The iPad is not the kind of computer you're used to seeing, but it most definitely is a computer.
The ipad pro's marketing copy describes it as "..packed with our most advanced technology, it will make you rethink what iPad is capable of. And what a computer is capable of."
Computers are capable of using mice. Even a WinCE box sitting inside a touchscreen ATM will support a mouse if you can hook one up to it.
> The iPad also supports an implement that mimics something professionals have been using to draft blueprints and create art for millennia.
I don't recall ever needing to buy a pencil that was specific to the make and model of the paper I wrote on.
My original comment was in response to "Samsung should look at what Apple is doing". And what they're doing, and doing very well, appears to be writing persuasive marketing copy that turns glaring feature deficiencies into upsell opportunities like "just buy the pen for another $100".
Not all of them. The iPad is a computer and it doesn’t support mice. To be less flippant, neither did a lot of computers prior to the original Macintosh, but they were certainly computers that were capable of real, professional work. Even today, many programmers still favor text editors like vi and emacs for which the mouse is an afterthought if it’s supported at all. You don’t need a mouse to make a computer.
> In fact, Even a WinCE box sitting inside a touchscreen ATM will support a mouse if you can hook one up to it.
If WinCE is your example of “advanced technology”, I think we’re done here.
Almost all technology becomes obsolete eventually. I’m not saying that’s happened to the mouse (in fact, rumors suggest that the next version of iOS will support mice), but I also think you’re failing to acknowledge that progress sometimes means removing vestigial features. I don’t see too many people complaining that it’s hard to find floppy disks these days. You don’t have to buy the pencil. It’s a value-add. You can use your fingers. You know, the world’s most natural, intuitive, and (in almost all cases) inexpensive pointing devices. On touch-screen devices, they’re a pretty good substitute for a mouse in the same way that a USB drive is a pretty good substitute for a floppy disk.
I don’t really understand why you’re so concerned with marketing copy. My guess is that you just don’t like Apple and nothing will convince you that you’re wrong. But you are. The iPad is a computer. A pretty powerful one too. That fact that it doesn’t adopt the 40-year-old WIMP-based user interface scheme doesn’t mean much.
Why wouldn't you follow and read the link? It's three short paragraphs and the second paragraph describes in no uncertain terms why they took it down.
But I think the GP's "they" means Samsung, not iFixit, and "why" means "why would Samsung do this stupid thing that will obviously attract attention to the issue"
(of course, that's all a guess, i'm not even close to be a lawyer).
Search engines aren't the only way to navigate the web, you know...
[0] https://archive.org/advancedsearch.php
[1]https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.ifixit.com/Teardow...
I'm puzzled as to how Samsung thought that this phone was ready for prime time. Was it being pushed top-down and no underling dared to speak up?
a) Samsung spent a ton of money and research in building foldable OLED screens.
b) This technology is allegedly stolen by a supplier and sold to BOE Display: https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/Samsung-supplier-...
c) Huawei uses the foldable BOE Display technology in its Mate X smartphone and is on track to be the first to release it.
d) Samsung panics as it learns that the technology it built might be released by a competitor earlier than them and consumers might think of them as less of an innovator. May sound silly but the Chinese companies have been getting a lot of traction recently e.g. P30 Pro.
e) In addition Samsung goes into lock down as it fears there might be more leaks to other companies.
f) Combination of d) and e) means that there is less real world testing of the device than for other phones. And hence how we got to this point.
>>d) Samsung panics as it learns that the technology it built might be released by a competitor earlier than them and consumers might think of them as less of an innovator. May sound silly but the Chinese companies have been getting a lot of traction recently e.g. P30 Pro.
Doesn't sound silly at all. I have a Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S and it's an amazingly good phone for the price (replaced my Google Pixel 2, which I liked enough). I'll absolutely buy a Chinese phone to replace this phone when it's time in a few years, or at least look into it. Other people constantly ask about the phone (has a striking reflective ceramic back) and haven't heard of Chinese phones, but are considering alternatives in droves due to the insane prices of flagships by Apple and Samsung.
Expensive? We are talking about $1T company here. I can't imagine they are unable to afford litigation in their core business space.
Basically, until somebody shows they violated some patent(s), these claimes about stolen tech are just a smere campaign. I don't understand why Huawei won't sue for it.
Additionally, the amount of cash Apple has on hand doesn't strike me as people plunging a major amount of their cash reserves into R&D. Much the opposite, actually.
No, wiping and installing stock Android is not that difficult, which is what I've done. Also, you drastically overestimate how interested Chinese manufacturers are in additional data [0] of random Americans.
[0]: Considering that all smartphone companies steal your data in some form, I doubt Xiaomi is stealing significantly more, really.
I own a Pocophone F1, made by Xiaomi. It supposedly has one of the better UIs by default, but I found it pretty insufferable.
Then again: The terrible software (with some ads) probably again subsidizes the device's price. No joke, the device with absolutely high-end specs cost me about 300€.
The bootloader unlocking process is an insult (you have to have a Xiaomi account, verify your e-mail address, link it to your device, install their windows-only software, then wait 3 days [most of those steps took me multiple reboots to get figured out correctly]), but after that it is absolutely smooth to install the Android distribution of your choice - and there's a lot of it.
I made sure not to do any banking on it before replacing the software, but afterwards it's probably more trustworthy than stock software of any non-chinese vendor.
Of course if we're talking about stock chinese software ..... yeah, I wouldn't trust that, even on their 'global' versions, that aren't government guaranteed to spy on their users.
I have to agree. Here in the UK, Huawei regularly advertise on TV now (often just after a Samsung ad!), and the name "Xiaomi" is becoming more recognised.
Aside from brand recognition, they make some great devices that are cheaper than those from Samsung and Apple.
When it comes time to replace my S7, I'll certainly be looking seriously at Huawei and Xiaomi.
Huawei makes a lot of the equipment for installations like this.
How do you reconcile that?
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/424584/new-evidence-that-...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/surveillance-and-censorship-ins...
How does this address Huawei ...?
Furthermore, many western companies (e.g. Cisco) have been called out for being involved with "dodgy" things like mass surveillance in countries in the Middle East and Asia - but also in western countries too.
IMO it makes to sense to boycott Huawei any more than it makes sense to boycott Cisco.
And if you meant in a "red danger" sense, as opposed to just Huawei, then I think it's safe to say the west is well on its way down the slippery slope to mass surveillance and over-reaching powers - the press likes to make a big deal of how evil China is, but completely ignores what goes on at home.
Re b), It's commonly accepted by a lot of people in China, Taiwan that it's Samsung's tactics to maintain market domination.
If you believe the anecdotes, like this one
https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/4fnp86/why_does_ht...
Samsung cut the oled supply to Huawei when it threatened Samsung's mobile phone market share, the same reason why Samsung screwed HTC before.
But... you are ifixit?
Read as "We at iFixit have"...
If you were authorized to represent CBRZY Inc, you could write a blog post and include the phrase "CBRZY Inc have published our comment suggesting that a representative writing for us shouldn't speak in third person." without sounding awkward.
So something got posted online without first consulting Grammarly. It's just a venial sin, not a mortal one.