Thinking About Foldables (Premium)

For consumers, the as-yet-unrealized dream of foldables and other hybrid devices is that they can replace two devices. As a technology enthusiast, I’m intrigued by foldables, a market that includes both true foldables like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 as well as dual-screen mobile devices like Surface Duo. But as a pragmatist, I’m not quite sure the value is there ... yet.

Anytime there’s a discussion about hybrid devices---devices that seem to span two previously existing markets---my mind wanders back to the original Apple iPad launch in 2010 and how then-CEO Steve Jobs framed the device.

“All of us use laptops and smartphones now,” he said. “And the question has arisen, lately: Is there room for a third category of device in the middle? Something that’s between a laptop and a smartphone?”

I’ve always had a problem with this introduction. The question… “has arisen”? Where? Were there really people out there wondering if they could somehow have yet another expensive device to buy?

The answer, of course, is no. That question arose, obviously, inside of Apple, whose business model at the time was entirely based around selling expensive devices over and over again to the same customers. The only way Apple could add value, then, was to sell another device, not add tablet-like features to the Mac, as Microsoft had done with Tablet PC. And that device was the iPad.

But Jobs got things off on a better foot once he got past obscuring his true intentions.

“The bar is high,” he said. “In order to really create a new category of devices, those devices are going to have to be far better at doing some key tasks. They’re going to have to be far better at doing some really important things. Better than the laptop. Better than the smartphone.”

Jobs then carefully laid out the tasks at which iPad would be superior---web browsing, email, sharing photos, watching videos, enjoying music, playing games, and reading ebooks---and then spent a good deal of time demonstrating those capabilities.

Now, any Microsoft fan who (re)reads those words today would surely think of Panos Panay and his Surface team, which are collectively obsessed by creating new categories of devices, despite the fact that they’ve never done so successfully. The only truly successful Surface device is the Surface Pro form factor, which Microsoft did not invent. But we can accurately give them credit for formalizing this form factor and inspiring several PC makers to create me-too PCs that are, charitably, very similar.

But if you think back to my earlier comments about Surface Duo, and the weird lack of justification for what Microsoft is marketing as a dual-screen device, or just watch the firm’s Surface Duo press introduction video for yourself, you will find no such justification. Instead, we get the very obvious fact that two screens are sometimes better for the types of productivity tasks that people typically don’t do on...

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