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points by Shank 4 days ago | 0 comments
I feel like the average tech enthusiast just assumes that most people have computers, but they do not. Most people have a phone as a primary computing device. Tablets have gone up in popularity, but for a significant portion of people, their only device is a phone. Those people are buying phones on carrier financing or other deals, so they don't even see the full cost of their device at all. So for people doing this type of upgrade cycle, a folding phone is quite compelling: an expanded screen size for watching video, consuming content, or heck, even maybe productivity, while being effectively a marginal upgrade in cost on a monthly payment.

Also, just for the record, some carriers in Japan are offering financing that gives you the option of paying over 48 months and Apple offers 36 months. Is that quite absurd to most people? Absolutely, but for the average person who wants a bigger screen sometimes, the cost is not even going up much on a monthly basis.

For the record, especially in Japan, folio cases where you open your phone like a book are already the default. Effectively most people on the train have their phone open in some "Duo-ish" form-factor already. So the jump from a folio case to a folding phone is already substantially lower.

Obviously the gimmick nature of folding is not the compelling reason why people want folding phones. The question is more about tradeoffs, and I think that especially in asia, the demand for folding phones is quite obvious: upgrade your primary PC to have a huge display when you want it that way, otherwise it stays compact enough to be with you all the time.

[–] crote 4 days ago
The problem with that argument is that it is stupidly expensive, no matter how you look at it. It's a $2000 phone, for the same money you can get an iPhone 18 Pro and a MacBook Neo. Or get an iPhone 17 / 17e and save yourself $300 / $500. Or swap the MacBook for an iPad and save up to an additional $350.

Carrier financing doesn't make this go away. It's still a $60/month plan vs a $100+/month one. You're paying significantly more to have a worse primary compute device. For most people, that's going to be a rather hard sell.

The only benefit is that you have it on you at all times. I would argue that this is an attractive selling point for tech enthusiasts, but most people aren't going to care.

[–] Melatonic 3 days ago
Nobody was buying other foldables so some carrier deals are crazy cheap. As in "trade in your old phone" and basically get a samsung foldable for free (last generation)
[–] cheesecakegood 4 days ago
Stupidly expensive from one perspective, but if you look at clothing and fashion it’s actually more surprising to me that the market effectively tops out where it does. Billionaires have more or less the exact same phone options as we do, and from base model to top model is only a bit more than 2x differential.
[–] Exoristos 2 days ago
They get aftermarket gold plating, diamonds, and that sort of nonsense.
[–] dymk 3 days ago
And they all have as many laptops and desktops as the want, too
[–] stasomatic 3 days ago
And yet mine won't ship until the end of January. We don't know how many they've made.

I would argue that this is an attractive selling point for tech enthusiasts, but most people aren't going to care.

But people camped out at my Aventura Apple Store in Miami at 8PM the previous day. Not a nerd hub really.

[–] SenHeng 3 days ago
Yup, I keep have to reminding colleagues that normies find it perfectly normal to write their graduation thesis on an iPhone.
[–] dpark 3 days ago
I have trouble believing that this is normal. Most (all?) people who need to write a thesis would have access to a computer with a keyboard and presumably would recognize that it’s significantly easier to write the thesis there.
[–] expedition32 3 days ago
I have a 3k gaming PC and believe me I prefer using my smartphone for everything except videogames.

HN just really hates mobiles and unironically goes to amazon.com rather than using the damn app.

[–] pjmlp 2 days ago
I go to the websites for most applications that are plain webviews and don't even hide it, as do plenty of people that I know, while creating application like bookmarks.
[–] officeplant 17 hours ago
>HN just really hates mobiles and unironically goes to amazon.com rather than using the damn app.

Well yes because I will never install a shopping app, fast food app, travel app, hotel app, the list goes on.

[–] rk06 4 days ago
I must say i find it hard to believe that a person, who can't afford to buy a laptop, would rather buy iphone duo on loan for PC needs.

maybe it is not the culture in India (where i live). but it looks financially irresponsible. if you need a laptop and can't afford it, buy a second hand laptop instead. iphone duo can't replace a laptop in first place.

[–] decafninja 3 days ago
I would say it's more a matter of not wanting a laptop, versus not being able to afford one.

I'm sure there are people who fall into the financially irresponsible category, but these days there are many people who find zero use for having a laptop and have no desire for one at all.

[–] decafninja 3 days ago
This.

Also it's not just a cost or affordability matter. Some people who can easily afford a top of the line laptop and/or tablet simply do not want one. They want one device to do all their computing needs from.

Most of my friends who are not in tech are like this, as is my wife. None of them have personal laptops at home. Few even have tablets.

[–] QuiEgo 3 days ago
This. It boggles my mind too. My wife has a laptop but 99% of the time she’ll use her phone unless there’s no other way. Its her primary device for books, YouTube, and any other kind of content consumption. I reach for a tablet or laptop far before her.
[–] bradknowles 1 day ago
My wife has two laptops, one for work and one personal. For the personal one, that only gets used for banking things, where she doesn’t trust her iPad or iPhone for that purpose. Almost everything else is done on her iPad. She also has work and personal iPhones, but even when she’s out of the house, those rarely get used. She takes her iPad with her everywhere she possibly can, and will even place calls on her iPad all the time. The phones typically only get used when she can’t have her iPad with her, or as a reminder of something she needs to do on another device. Her mix of time spent is probably 99% iPad and 1% iPhone and no measurable amount of personal time spent on the laptop.

For me, I have two personal laptops, one of which I use more as a server in the house (MacBook Pro M3 Max). The other one is my actual primary laptop (MacBook Air M5), but I don’t use it that much, either. I only use my laptop(s) when I’m doing things involving creation of content, such as writing or deep research, etc…. The iPad gets used for all content consumption at home, but doesn’t typically go outside the house. The iPhone gets used for calls, inside or outside of the house. And the iPhone is what gets taken with me when I’m outside of the house, both for occasional content consumption while I’m waiting somewhere, as well as navigation and call purposes. I’m probably closer to 90% iPad, and 9% iPhone and 1% laptop.

I think the patterns for many people are similar. Content consumption doesn’t typically get done on computers anymore. That’s for tablets and phones. Many people don’t do much in the way of creation anymore, and if they do, then it’s probably on resources provided by work.

Or, it’s video content creation where the tools on phones and tablets are sufficient for the majority of amateur or social media videos. And social media sites are all about keeping you consuming content for as long as they can, where creating content is neither necessary nor really desired. They want your attention on all those ads they’re selling against you as their captive inventory of eyeballs.

[–] krustyburger 1 day ago
Well, hopefully you at least reach for her from time to time.
[–] SenHeng 3 days ago
My wife can be working on her laptop, but will pull out her iPhone if she needs to google anything. I’ve given up trying to understand that behaviour.
[–] dpark 3 days ago
Real life app switch. It’s slower than alt+tab but it’s also less disruptive in terms of context loss.

I sometimes pull out my phone for the calculator rather than use the calculator app on my laptop. I can’t justify it as logical.

[–] piltdownman 3 days ago
TBH I feel that whatever totemistic or workflow quirks you need to keep maintaining flow state is perfectly logical. Software Engineers keep rubber ducks for a reason.
[–] bradknowles 1 day ago
I don’t have a good calculator app on my laptop. The “42” app on my iPad and iPhone is a much better calculator app than I’ve ever seen on any laptop.

I do sometimes break out the terminal and use `bc -l` to do some math, when I’m doing other things on the laptop. But if I could get a version of the “42” app for my laptop, I would be a much happier puppy.

[–] Terretta 1 day ago
Consider https://soulver.app/

On the splash page, check the calculator 'tab', or the docs it links to: https://documentation.soulver.app/syntax-reference/general (see left hand nav for categories of calcs).

See what's new in v4 for an idea of higher level capabilities (these are just new ones): https://documentation.soulver.app/whats-new-in-soulver-4

[–] MBCook 3 days ago
Hi. Big techie nerd here. This is me.

If I’m not doing programming or 3D modeling, I generally don’t use my laptop. It doesn’t seem worth the trouble of getting it. I can do the vast, vast majority of what I want on my phone, faster, because it’s already right there.

If I’m reading more or researching more, I pull out my iPad for the bigger screen.

But over the last decade, I’ve realized those two take care of the vast majority of my needs.

[–] decafninja 3 days ago
I am like this too. Software engineer by trade, but I rarely pull out my personal laptop (I suppose this is an admission that I also rarely work on personal projects these days too...).

Most of my consumption happens on my iPad at home and while traveling, and my iPhone when on the move (such as commuting).

[–] MBCook 3 days ago
Being a software engineer is also probably part of it.

I spend all day on the computer. Unless I have some specific project I’m really interested in I’ve already had plenty of “computer time“ for the day and don’t feel that draw.

It still made sense before the smart phone, or when my phone it iPad couldn’t cover my needs well. These days that’s not a problem.

[–] lbreakjai 3 days ago
It boggles my mind. I only use my phone as a very last resort. It's such a terrible experience overall. Between modals, banners, and ads, it's downright impossible to even read the content you want.

It's not even a screen size issue. I couldn't imagine diving into anything remotely serious without being able to open a new tab and search a specific term/concept/fact in a quarter of a second, without having to fight the autocorrect at every step of the process.

[–] floydnoel 1 day ago
Why not just block the ads and such?
[–] lbreakjai 1 day ago
For a long time, this was something you couldn't really do on an iPhone. You couldn't just install Firefox with uBlock. Even ignoring the ads, most websites seem to purposefully make the experience miserable to push you to their app.
[–] bradknowles 1 day ago
On iPhone and iPad, there are good system-wide ad blocking tools you can get. They will work in any WebKit view, which covers almost every app that is likely to be displaying any ads. There’s 1Blocker, Adblock Plus, AdGuard Pro, and many more.

Your biggest problem in this space is trying to figure out which ones are good for you and which ones are not.

[–] floydnoel 23 hours ago
Sure, there was a time when you would need a jailbreak to do it, but ad-blocking on iOS has been supported for 14 years now.
[–] loehnsberg 4 days ago
Are you sure this phone-only segment will pay twice the price for a little more screen estate? Maybe… But why not recommend to these folks to get an ipad mini with an e-sim? You get the bigger screen at less than half the price, and it still fits into the pocket of a coat at least. You could even buy one of those Logitech BT keyboards and have a mini laptop.
[–] bradknowles 1 day ago
The iPad mini has the problem that it won’t fit into the smaller pockets, like pants pockets, shirt pockets, smaller purses, etc….

Yes, the larger screen is nice, but portability is key. The foldable devices can do both.

For myself, I’m not even going to consider them until they are much more robust. When they get to the point where Zack on JerryRigEverything can’t easily break them, then I might consider the idea. Not until then.

[–] tiltowait 4 days ago
Apple's financing is 0%. While it may seem absurd for a phone, the smart money is on taking financing—so long as you're a responsible spender, which many are not.
[–] crossroadsguy 3 days ago
Paying for an inferior and crazy expensive device in 48 months instead of 36 months makes it somehow not inferior?
[–] morpheuskafka 4 days ago
48 months financing is two years. If you upgrade your phone less often than every year, what’s absurd about that?
[–] arm 4 days ago
48 months is 4 years.
[–] kristjank 4 days ago
Getting into debt for a depreciating asset is not really very sensible