[erikpukinskis]

Folding phones are ~1.5% of the market.

Apple cancelled their mini line which was 3% of sales.

It’s not a big enough slice for them to want to chase.

[icedchai]

I prefer a smaller phone, something that fits in your pocket easily with glasses, and am still rocking an iPhone Mini 13.

[ansc]

I am getting more and more nervous that there will be no good upgrade for me. 13 Mini is such a good size!

[vizzah]

yeah.. and I am buying $2k unopened on eBay to keep for the future, if my current one is lost.

[epolanski]

Folding phones are a niche because they are very expensive to be honest.

[0x457]

Sure, but I wouldn't buy one even if it was in the same price range as phones I usually buy. For me, it will be useful rarely and cumbersome to use the rest of the time.

[dbg31415]

I picked up a folding phone a while back just to test it out, and honestly they're still pretty underwhelming.

The screen isn't really big enough or the right shape to feel like a real upgrade for movies, and a lot of apps just aren't built with foldables in mind. Most of the time it just feels like a weirdly shaped, less powerful, less durable tablet.

On top of that you're dealing with a visible crease across the screen, higher prices for something that's actually more fragile, and bulkier hardware with smaller or split batteries. The tech is cool in theory, but in practice it's a lot of compromises without a clear killer use case.

[SirMaster]

The Samsung Flip 7 costs $900 and is less than most iPhones...

[arcticbull]

I have a folding android and it’s very meh. Wouldn’t get one again. It was also free with a prepaid phone plan so I doubt cost is really the factor.

[catach]

> It’s not a big enough slice for them to want to chase.

Typical strat for them is not to be first with an innovation, but to wait and work out the kinks enough that they can convince people that the tradeoffs are well worth making. Apple wouldn't be chasing that existing slice, they'd be trying to entice a larger share of their customers to upgrade faster.

[baby]

Folding phones are also double the price. If the price comes down I would expect them to dominate the market.

[amelius]

Yes, in some way everybody is in the 1.5% of something. Apple users will therefore never be 100% happy. Apple is a compromise. But they're also opinionated and very good at telling their users what they should like.

[cyberax]

Folding phones are extremely popular in China, where nobody cares about Apple anymore. They are now seen as a status symbol because they are significantly more expensive.