In Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman’s weekly Powered On newsletter, he stated that Apple is exploring a ‘flip-phone’ concept for a future iPhone model. Remember those vintage flip-phones from the late 1990s/early 2000s that had those clamshell devices where you would open them by flipping the top half vertically? Other smartphone companies pretty much revived that idea with more modern features that would still make it a smartphone. We’ve seen this with Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip7 and the Motorola Razr.
As you may know, Apple is preparing to launch its highly anticipated foldable iPhone for this coming September, and that foldable iPhone is expected to have a form factor similar to that of Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold7, where it would open up horizontally like a book or folio. While Apple is experimenting to see whether a foldable iPhone would gain much traction, this could give Apple more opportunities to explore different form factors for its iPhone, expanding its lineup with more sizes and designs that would cater to everyone for the first time. Maybe down the road, Apple will launch a tri-fold iPhone that would take on Samsung’s Galaxy Z TriFold which starts at $2,900, and it’s already sold out.
“Apple is betting that its first foldable iPhone will be successful enough to generate real demand for the category and that customers will want additional shapes and sizes, much as they have with traditional slab-style iPhones. Nevertheless, he said a clamshell iPhone is ‘far from guaranteed to reach the market.’” -Mark Gurman
Still, I think a flip-phone iPhone would be interesting. Would you still buy it regardless of the price or features it would have or lack? Sound off in the comments below.
