Image via Android Central
Last week the Consumer Electronics Show-Or CES for short-was held in Las Vegas. Tons of future tech products were shown off, from 5G phones, to 8K TVs, to self-driving cars, but one technology showed up the most: foldables. Dell, Huawei, and HP all showed off new foldable phones, laptops, and tablets. So if this is the future of consumer electronics, why hasn’t Apple made any foldable yet? Have they lost their edge over their competitors? Have they fallen behind the pack? The answer to both of these questions: No. The reason why Apple hasn’t made any folding iPhones, iPads, or MacBooks when every other tech company has products using this technology yet is not because every other tech company is smarter than them, but because they are smarter than every other tech company. Right now, folding phones suck. Apple knows this. They saw what happened with the Galaxy Fold, how the review units broke within days of journalists receiving them, everyone did. Apple knows that folding technology isn’t ready yet, and they know that, if they want to make a truly great folding product, they need it to be. Apple has done this before, when they were developing the original iMac, Steve Jobs refused to use a tray loading disk drive, even though cd-burning drives didn’t come in the slot loading form factor yet. Jobs knew it was better to have a better user experience, one where users didn’t have to press a button to insert and play disks, than give them the functionality of being able to burn cds. This core appreciation for the user experience to the extent of the loss of some functionality is the core foundation of Apple today, what sets it apart from Dell, HP, Lenovo, and the rest of the pack, and the policy that has made them the most popular-and most profitable-tech company in the world.