Apple has never been particularly interested in doing something first, which is unusual for a technology company, especially for a trillion-dollar company. He loves to do things Correctly. He likes to do something when it’s good and ready.

The original iPhone was one example of this, however much the company’s cheerleaders tried to retroactively crown it the world’s first smartphone. On the contrary, before that we had a lot of smartphones; they just weren’t very good. Apple found a market ripe for dominance—located at that golden point where user interest was high and affordable product quality low—and then collapsed like a multi-touch cannonball with a phone that got the concept right.

But the foldable iPhone, which we talk about endlessly, rather than something that really exists in any verifiable form, took a different path. In theory, Apple is playing its usual long game of watching, waiting, and moving behind the scenes while Samsung, Motorola, Oppo, and the rest release their hyped products to heat up the market. But as Samsung unveils the fourth generation of its Galaxy Fold phone, the market has been pleasantly lukewarm for a while, and there’s no sign of a Cupertino headliner.

Crease, aging

As you might expect, the Fold experienced difficulties with the new form factor in the early days of its existence. The original Fold suffered from terrible reviews, lags, screen defects and software bugs, and was, frankly, a mess. But by the time the Galaxy Z Fold 3 hit the market, we saw Samsung calm down and sharpening. Instead of fixing serious problems, they improved the design and reduced the price. The Z Fold 4, meanwhile, unveiled this week, offers a faster processor, better camera, and a thinner body. These are the upgrades you would expect from a mature device, not something new and risky.

Dominic Tomaszewski / Foundry

Of course, the Galaxy Z Fold 4 (which you can pre-order here) isn’t much different from the original Galaxy Fold. It’s a little thinner, a little more practical, and a little cheaper, but Samsung sticks to its original vision of an overly thin and thick phone that opens into a large tablet. Samsung says it has sold about 10 million foldable devices over the past three years, including the less expensive Galaxy Flip, but it feels like the market is still very untested and uncertain.

In some ways, this is a tricky situation for Samsung, which now has to come up with compelling reasons for customers to upgrade from previous generations and bring in new customers who might be skeptical. But it also allows the company to get some rest. With little to no competition, Samsung’s innovation with the Fold has stalled: there’s still a crease in the center of the screen, there’s still no S Pen slot, and there’s still a gap when closed. And at $1,799, it’s still very expensive.

It’s easy to see why Apple would never sell a flagship iPhone with the same flaws. New Apple devices can be rough around the edges — the first iPhone didn’t even have an App Store, and the original Apple Watch relied on the iPhone to run apps — but the hardware is always solid. Software can evolve and evolve, but hardware is forever.

But people still love Samsung’s foldable phones. Even if Apple gets it right, launching a foldable iPhone now will be a huge challenge, as competitors have a track record of building robust foldable devices and customers have built device-specific loyalty. Since a foldable iPhone isn’t on the horizon for at least 2-3 years, the foldable revolution is close to overtaking Apple, if not already.

Waiting for iFold

So what’s Apple’s grand plan? Is he seriously going to completely abandon the foldable device market? Maybe. But it’s more of a gamble than it might seem.

Because, despite the tech media’s understandable cynicism about hype and points of failure, collapsible could become a widespread or even dominant form factor. After all, a folding screen is basically the perfect design for a phone that combines a large workspace with a compact body. It just runs into practical problems implementing this design, and if you wait long enough, as Apple does, those practical problems will start to disappear.

Dominic Tomaszewski / Foundry

Let me put it another way. Imagine the tech landscape of 2030. What is the main device each person uses in their daily life? It could be the iPhone 21 Pro Max with the same form factor and better camera, but it’s more likely to be something completely new, like VR/AR headsets. Perhaps something we’ve already seen evolves to take on a wider role: the Apple Watch, for example, if Apple can find a way around the screen size limit. But no matter what, it’s hard to imagine that everyone will still carry smartphones with the same design as the iPhone 13.

Foldable smartphones have a chance to be the all-in-one device of the future, and it worries me that Apple is doing so little to prepare for that future. It’s one thing to be late for fashion, but when it comes to foldable devices, Apple runs the risk of showing up to a party and finding all the seats filled.