Asymco's Horace Dediu questions the foldable iPhone's purpose, citing durability and price risks while acknowledging early sales could be driven by status appeal.
Alpha Score of 56 reflects moderate overall profile with moderate momentum, weak value, strong quality, moderate sentiment.
Apple's foldable iPhone, a product the company has not confirmed but that supply-chain reports have long pointed to, raises a question that no amount of leaked chassis renders can answer: what is it for?
Horace Dediu, the analyst behind Asymco, put the question to his own instincts during a subscriber Q&A held the day after Apple's fiscal third-quarter earnings. He owns an iPad mini and an iPhone, and he does not reach for the iPad when the iPhone is in hand. A foldable that opens to iPad-mini size, he said, solves a problem he does not have.
"Honestly, I don't feel I have that job to do," Dediu said.
He acknowledged that his own past predictions about screen size were wrong. He assumed most users would prefer a smaller phone they could operate with one hand. The market chose differently. The iPhone Max became his own daily driver. "Maybe we need to try it before we learn what it can be used for," he said.
Dediu pointed to durability and price as reservations. "Any moving parts are bound to fail sooner than those without moving parts," he said. Still, he believes the foldable's initial sales could be strong among buyers who want to demonstrate they can afford one. "That alone may drive sales for at least the first quarter or two," he said.
The track record of existing foldables from Samsung and others has not been a booming endorsement. Those products have been on the market for roughly six years and have not converted a critical mass of users. "No one seems to say this is the greatest thing and everyone's switching to it," Dediu said.
Apple's version, he said, could be the iteration that finally clicks. "Perhaps Apple's version will be the perfect match, the perfect package, perfect in every way, that will cause adoption to take off," he said. He characterized the product as a high-end addition to the portfolio, not a mass-market replacement.
On a follow-up question about the foldable's impact on iPad demand and the convergence of Apple's software platforms, Dediu said the device would effectively run two operating systems – one for the small folded screen and one for the larger unfolded display. The larger mode would tap into iPadOS, which Apple has refined over years. "Then the question is: is there value in having your iPad in your pocket with you?" he said. He called the product an experiment whose success depends on how users and developers adapt.
The foldable iPhone remains unannounced. Apple has scheduled no event for it. Dediu's assessment suggests that the technical hurdles are the easy part. The harder question is whether enough people want a phone that unfolds into a tablet, once the novelty of the hinge wears off.
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