Plus, you no longer need to deal with buying and maintaining a separate device like an iPad! This is why I suspect Apple is dragging its feet on the foldable category, besides letting the screen technology mature. It will probably cannibalize some sales from that market segment.
I've found a much easier solution to this problem.
I find my phone much more comfortable to hold than a book. It fits my hand.
You only read one sentence at a time anyway. I rather scroll, keeping the current sentence in the middle of the screen than jump around with my eyes in an open book, and having to turn pages, or keeping them flat.
Am I missing something? (Real question. I read a lot!)
1) Some books have images, charts, tables, etc. The screen size makes a big difference for these.
2) The format of the "book". Reading a PDF for example is much better on a bigger screen.
Nah, I'd say most digital books are probably PDFs.
Not how I read when I read on paper & this bothers me on a phone a lot.
I'm not functionally dyslexic, but all the words pop out at the same time, you could say I read verbs, then tense, nouns after and then I read adjectives in a sentence.
But English is also my second language, so my first language's grammar probably fits closer.
Oddly enough when I first encountered lisp, the nested pile of map, fold and filter was easier because of the well trained habit of restructuring after reading verbs.
For your second, I think you don’t understand why people buy/use iPads. First off, I don’t really know anyone who uses an iPad mini for anything productive (other than as a test device). A 7-9” screen is just not useful compared to a 13” iPad for things like Sidecar or reading sheet music in live performances. The 7-9” screen being an unfolded phone doesn’t change this.
A folding iPhone could eat the iPad mini, but that’s never been a cash cow for Apple or something power users cared about - it’s more of an “iPod touch” for kids. (And frankly, the Switch 2 kind of obsoletes it.) The thing that would eat 13” iPads’ lunch is something more like Apple Vision.
I guess you don't know many pilots? :)
This is the app they use https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ForeFlight
My normal international travel load-out is a backup smart phone + an 8" LTE tablet with eSIM + bluetooth keyboard. It's about as minimal as I can get while still having a real keyboard and functional screen size to handle travel logistics.
For me personally, it's my travel machine. I've done all sorts of things with it on the road. From SSH to using Photoshop to make some last minute edits. It (barely) fits in my pockets so I don't even need a bag for it. Probably my favorite machine ever at least in terms of form factor.
Screen size does seem to be a personal choice. For me, I've always liked small screens for portability. I'm the weirdo who actually got work done on the first gen Asus EEE PC and didn't mind it. But I can understand that wouldn't be for everyone.
https://www.arts.gov/stories/blog/2024/federal-data-reading-...
Though I agree with you that a larger reading screen would be very nice, I doubt such an experience on a device that offers endless digital distractions will reverse this downward trend - not that you said it would.
Also I doubt that Apple's foldable phone will cost the same or less than Samsung's, as is suggested in the article...
Microsoft and Apple have already proven that students are willing to shell out the money to buy $1000+ products just to take hand written digital notes on. If Samsung or someone else could create a foldable that's in the ~$1500 range that can fold out into the size of an ipad mini AND has a good pen usage and storage situation, I believe it will sell incredibly well.
It'd be so cool to be able to walk to a lecture with only your phone.
The form factor doesn’t lend itself to storing a comfortably sized “pencil” along with the phone, and god forbid an Apple accessory exist that doesn’t feel perfectly integrated with the product it goes with.
That said, these days I use a Samsung Galaxy Note 10+, Amazon Kindle Scribe w/ Premium Pen, Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360, and when at a desk, a MacBook and Wacom One display, all with Wacom EMR --- no folding devices, since there doesn't yet seem to be one which uses the normal frequencies (most recent foldables used the same frequency for the stylus as is usually used for the eraser?!?).
I'd give a lot for a competitor to the Lenovo Yoga Book 9i which used a Wacom EMR stylus, or for a phone which used a standard Wacom EMR stylus.
Consequently, probably why I might be "downgrading" from a pro max down to the new iPhone Air. No bulk, no excessive camera array...just a thin, light phone.
I did try one, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold for 6 months before going back to iOS (I'm too deep on the ecosystem, but I like to try Android again every once in a while).
I think I only used it unfolded like three times. It was pretty much pointless for me.
Anything I need a bigger screen for, I almost always have either my laptop or iPad with me for that. I don't WANT to do things on my phone, I actually want to use it less - a foldable offers the alternative deal, where you want to and actively use your phone for more and more tasks forgoing other devices.
Not for me, probably never will be.
To people (like me) who want bigger screens, your comment reads akin to "Imagine that you need to grab your phone because you need a 6" screen, now instead you can just flip out a second screen from your Apple Watch and have a 2.5" screen."