Apple: Creators of the category’s final form

Butterflies from Samsung and Huawei carry the pundits to 30,000 feet.

From Apple360’s Jeffrey Mincey: Apple, Save Us From Foldable Tablets.

Worry not. Apple seldom makes it to a new party until after everyone else gets drunk, and right now the technology industry is drunk to a new level of giddiness over foldable smartphones from Samsung and Huawei.

Look, I understand that we computer users of yesteryear did not ask Steve Jobs to give us the mouse or point and click. When he and other Apple folk saw the Xerox Star at PARC they saw the future. That future is still here as every PC you can buy is similarly point and click.

Look, I understand that we smartphone users of the 21st century did not ask Steve Jobs to give us a glass keyboard on a multi-touch display. When the engineers at Google’s Android group saw the first iPhone demonstration in early 2007, they went back to the drawing board because, they, too, recognized the future, and that future is still here as every smartphone you can buy has a similar look and feel as the first iPhone…

So, will history repeat itself? Oh, God, I hope so.

From MacDailyNews: Woz can’t wait to get a folding iPhone.

As Woz seems to have forgotten, Apple wasn’t first with fingerprint recognition, they were the first to do it right with Touch ID. Apple wasn’t first with facial recognition, they were the first to do it right with Face ID. Apple wasn’t first with contactless payments, they were the first to do it right with Apple Pay.

From the Macalope: Beneath the fold: The reality about Apple and foldable screens.

Apple doesn’t ship bleeding edge technology. It usually isn’t first to market. Elliot Loh summed it up perfectly:

One way to evaluate Apple: as creators of a category’s final form.

This is a great answer because it’s both correct—we’ve seen it in the personal computer, the smartphone, the digital music player and the tablet and it seems like it’s starting to happen with wireless headphones—and because it lets you make jokes about BEHOLD MY FINAL FORM.*

*Final form: I had to look it up. From Know Your Meme:

The phrase was originally uttered by the villain character Frieza in the Japanese anime series Dragon Ball Z. During his pinnacle battle scene against the protagonists, Frieza boasts his capacity of strength by saying “You FOOL! This isn’t even my final form! Wait until you see my TRUE power!

My take: I’m not persuaded that a transformer phone is anything Apple would want to bring to market. But if it did, I’m confident Jony Ive’s butterfly would be the best. And the most expensive.

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