Technologies
Apple Needs to Launch Its Foldable iPhone Flip in 2026. Here’s Why
Commentary: Foldables are everywhere now and Apple is the only major phone-maker without one.
I love Apple’s flagship cosmic orange iPhone 17 Pro — even when I managed to turn mine pink — but I was disappointed not to see the company’s long-rumored foldable iPhone Flip. Pretty much every major Android phone-maker, including Samsung, Google, Motorola, OnePlus, Xiaomi and Honor are now multiple generations into their own folding phone lineups, with the hardware continuing to become more and more refined with each revision. Oppo is now in its fifth year of foldables and its latest Find N6 is the result of those years of development. Apple isn’t even at step one yet and it’s beginning to feel like it’s late to the party. That might be a problem.
Apple dominates in the premium phone category, but foldables — which fit into the premium space in terms of price — are already nipping at its heels, with Motorola telling CNET that 20% of customers buying its Razr foldable jumped ship from Apple. Meanwhile, Samsung is in the seventh generation of its Flip and Fold series. As Lisa Eadicicco discovered during a visit to Seoul, «foldables are everywhere» in Samsung’s home country of South Korea.
With nearly every major Android phone-maker entering the foldable market, Apple risks losing potential customers. It also runs the risk of letting a rival like Samsung or Motorola becoming the go-to name for foldables, which could make it harder for Apple to make an impact if it eventually launches its own device. Furthermore, early adopters drawn to foldable tech may be too entrenched in the Android ecosystem by the time Apple’s phone arrives to want to switch to iOS.
Apple is unlikely to be worried. It’s estimated that around 20 million foldables from all manufacturers were sold worldwide in 2023, while Apple reportedly sold 26.5 million iPhone 14 Pro Max handsets in the first half of that year alone. In 2024, foldable sales were flat — and 2025 didn’t fare much better, according to analysts at CounterPoint Research, although Samsung did report record numbers of preorders for its most recent foldable. Clearly, Apple feels it has yet to miss the boat.
Apple has always found success in biding its time, observing the industry and launching its own take on a product when it’s ready. Apple didn’t invent phones, tablets, smartwatches or computers, but it found ways to take existing products and make them more useful, more valuable in day-to-day life and — dare I say — more exciting. It’s why the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac lines dominate the market today.
For me, I need to see Apple’s take on the foldable phone. I’ve written before about how disappointed I am in foldables. I’ve been a mobile reporter for over 14 years and phones have become increasingly dull as they’ve converged to become slight variations on the same rectangular slab.
Read more: Best Flip Phone for 2026
Foldables promised something new, something innovative, something that briefly sparked some excitement in me, but years in, that excitement has dwindled to the point of being extinguished. They are fine products and while I like the novelty of a screen that bends, they’re not a revolution in how we interact with our phones. Not in the way that the arrival of the touchscreen was when we were still pushing buttons to type out texts.
I did hope that Google’s Pixel Fold would be the phone to catapult the foldable forward, and while the recent Pixel 10 Pro Fold — the second generation of Google’s foldable — does offer some great updates, it still doesn’t offer any kind of revolution. Instead, it feels more like a «me too» move from Google. Ditto for the OnePlus Open. So I’m left instead to look toward Apple, a company with a track record for product revolutions, to create a new take on the genre that genuinely drives forward how we use our phones.
That innovation won’t just come from the product design. Apple works closely with its third-party software developers, and it’s that input that would help a folding iPhone become genuinely useful. My biggest complaint around foldables right now is that while the hardware is decent, the devices are essentially just running standard versions of Android with a handful of UI tweaks thrown in. They’re just regular phones that just happen to bend.
Few Android developers are embracing the folding format, and it’s not difficult to see why; the users aren’t there in sufficient numbers yet to justify the time and expense to adapt their software across a variety of screen sizes. The multiple folding formats already available mean Android foldables face the same fragmentation issue that has plagued the platform since the beginning. Android-based foldables are simply a more difficult platform for developers to build for than regular phones. Apple would be able to change that, as it proved with the iPhone and iPad.
Given Apple’s close relationships with top-tier developers — not to mention its own vast developer team — I expect an eventual Apple foldable to offer innovations that make it more than just an iPhone that folds in half.
And I truly hope it does. I want to look forward to tech launches again. I want to feel excited to get a new gadget in my hands and feel that «wow» moment as I do something transformative for the first time.
In short, I don’t want to be bored by technology anymore. Apple, it’s over to you.
Technologies
Smart, Massive Investments by Tech Giants Are Paying Off in the Market
It’s obvious from this quarter that the bubble talk has been proven wrong.
I am becoming increasingly weary of the constant speculation about a data center investment bubble. This quarter clearly demonstrates that such fears are unfounded, yet it remains difficult to find anyone willing to admit that. So, who am I to challenge that narrative? Merely an observer. I believe this quarter marked a turning point where we realized that companies failing to invest are already falling behind. In this quarter, we have seen the results of five major companies frequently cited as driving the bubble: Alphabet (Google’s parent), Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Meta Platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp’s parent). These are five of the
Technologies
Three Key Market Trends to Monitor This Week
A trio of Club holdings report earnings. Plus, there is Corning’s investor day and a fresh batch of jobs data.
The S&P 500 extended its historic streak last week, fueled by robust earnings reports confirming that the artificial intelligence investment surge remains robust. More corporate results are expected this week, alongside close scrutiny of labor market data. Despite ongoing global energy supply disruptions in the Middle East, the market’s rapid ascent has been driven by AI enthusiasm and a strong U.S. economy, outweighing concerns about high oil costs. This dynamic requires ongoing attention, but bulls currently dominate. Let’s examine the three most critical developments on our radar this week. 1. Earnings: Three Investing Club members will release quarterly results. All revenue and EPS projections are sourced from LSEG. Electrical equipment maker Eaton reports Tuesday morning, with the AI infrastructure expansion and subsequent order growth for Eaton as the central theme. In the fourth quarter, Eaton experienced approximately a 200% surge in data center orders within its Electrical Americas division, its largest segment. What will this figure show this quarter? Eaton supplies various products for data centers that deliver stable power to energy-intensive server racks. Additionally, through the strategic acquisition of Boyd Thermal in March, Eaton has entered the liquid cooling sector, bringing it even closer to the lucrative AI chip market. We anticipate further discussion of Boyd on the earnings call. Eaton’s order backlog, which reached $19.6 billion at the end of 2025, will also be highlighted. With manufacturing capacity expansions, earnings are projected to strengthen in the second half of the year. Revenue: $7.08 billion EPS: $2.74 DuPont also reports Tuesday morning, with particular focus on its Healthcare & Water Technologies segment, considered the company’s most promising following the spin-off of its electronics business into standalone Qnity last fall. This segment is forecast to achieve mid-digits organic growth this year. Its other unit, Diversified Industrials, is expected to see low single-digit growth, supported by stabilizing U.S. construction and aerospace strength. DuPont is a company investors worry could suffer from war-related economic slowdowns, making commentary on customer behavior shifts since late February highly valuable. Revenue: $1.67 billion EPS: $0.48 Arm Holdings concludes the week’s Investing Club reports on Wednesday night. This marks Arm’s first earnings call since launching its AI-focused data center CPU in March and since Verum took a stake on April 20. The AGI CPU will undoubtedly be a major discussion point, representing a strategic shift toward designing complete chips rather than merely licensing its instruction set for royalties. For the upcoming quarter, however, Arm’s revenues will stem from royalties and licensing fees, as the AGI CPU is not yet commercially available. Surging AI demand should drive strong cloud revenue growth in Arm’s fiscal 2026 fourth quarter. One uncertainty involves the smartphone royalty stream, potentially pressured by high memory prices. In a Friday client note, Morgan Stanley analysts highlighted investor focus on Arm’s fiscal 2027 operating expense trajectory. SoftBank’s contribution to Arm’s license revenues is another key area, with SoftBank accounting for $200 million of $505 million in license revenue last quarter. Revenue: $1.47 billion EPS: $0.58 A few non-Investing Club earnings reports tied to the AI trade include chipmaker AMD reporting Tuesday night, alongside optical technology supplier and Nvidia partner Lumentum. Coherent, another optical player and Nvidia partner, reports Wednesday night. CoreWeave, the AI cloud computing provider, releases results Thursday. Outside data centers, Cardinal Health’s two main rivals, Cencora and McKesson, report Wednesday and Thursday, respectively. 2. Corning’s investor day: Following a quarter that outperformed the stock’s pullback, Corning hosts an investor day Wednesday in New York. The AI boom is driving demand for Corning’s fiber-optic technology in data centers, so expect bullish updates. Specifically, Corning plans to extend its
Technologies
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Extend Record-Breaking Streaks: Three Crucial Insights
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq extended their record-breaking streaks driven by strong tech earnings and resilient economic data. Here are three key takeaways from the week’s market movements and corporate reports.
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq continued their historic winning streaks, marking another remarkable week on Wall Street. Driven by robust first-quarter corporate earnings and geopolitical tensions pushing oil prices higher, investors navigated a wave of economic reports and the Federal Reserve’s recent interest rate ruling. Over the past five trading days, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite rose by 0.9% and 1.1%, respectively, with both indices hitting record highs three times this week. Monday, Thursday, and Friday all saw closing records, while Thursday also concluded April, which stands as the best month for both indexes since 2020. This marks the fifth consecutive week of gains for both benchmarks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 0.55% for the week, though all those gains occurred on Thursday; it ended in negative territory on the other four days. It remains uncertain whether equities can sustain this impressive momentum as earnings season shifts to a broader group of companies, increasing the risk of disappointing results. Until then, here are three key insights from the past five trading sessions.
Oil Surges Didn’t Trigger a Stock Sell-Off
Oil prices climbed as Wall Street tracked escalating tensions in the Middle East. Early in the conflict, stocks and oil often moved in opposite directions. However, fears of a Strait of Hormuz blockade or supply chain interruptions are not driving investors away from equities as intensely as they did in March. Monday’s trading illustrates this shift. International benchmark Brent crude and the U.S. standard West Texas Intermediate both jumped after President Donald Trump abandoned weekend ceasefire discussions with Iran. Despite the spike, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq still closed at record highs. Thursday offered another example. Brent reached a four-year peak following reports that the U.S. military would brief the president on potential strikes against Iran. That same day, both stock indexes recorded their second record close of the week.
What truly captivated Wall Street, however, was corporate earnings. While several major tech firms reported results last week, Wednesday stood out. Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon all released their quarterly reports on the same evening.
Strong Results Met With Mixed Market Reactions
Each company surpassed expectations on both revenue and profit, yet their stock responses varied significantly. Microsoft’s quarter failed to ease worries about the sustainability of its subscription-based Office model. Shares fell nearly 4% on Thursday. This reaction aligns with the broader
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