Canalys: Foldable shipments could 'exceed 30 million by 2024' Canalys has peered into the channel crystal ball once again and forecast that foldable smartphone shipments will surpass 30 million by 2024. To put that figure in context, last month the analyst confirmed that 363 million smartphones were shipped in Q4 2021, up just 1 per cent year-on-year, but for the whole of 2021 sales grew …
Don't we all?
That said, the first 3 months with my Z-Fold 3 have been, as I believe the young people say these days, awesome.
The folded profile really only gets used for phone calls and selecting tracks on the 'music' player (currently rocking out to the Lovecraft Mysteries series from Auntie Beeb), while for everything else (videos, games, reading El Reg, and especially navigation while tunnelling up the New England Highway in search of the Alfa's next speeding fine) there's the full unfolded glory.
Samsung, though it pains me to admit, have to be congratulated both for their clever method of upsizing 3rd Party apps, and the thought they've put into making their own native apps utilise the screen real estate, especially the camera app, which gives a wide selection of shooting information and onscreen access to all the tools that are useful for a tog reduced to using a smartphone.
you just had to have a dig at Apple didn't you. Are you aware that Apple have not "invented" anything in years? Maybe never.
Just like they didn't "invent" a telephone without a headphone socket. That honour belongs to Motorola.
And when they bring out a telephone with no sockets for anything they won't be the first either.
As someone who in the dark and distant past had their name as co-inventor on a Patent (over 40 years ago), it is not the inventors that get the big bucks. It is the people like Apple and others who take those ideas which are in most cases just ideas but importantly pretty rough and ready and turn them into something that can be used in the real world. That costs $$$$/£££££ which many patent owners simply don't have.
I made the grand sum of... [drumroll please] £0.00 or if you prefer $0.00 from the patent. I'm not bitter because we did it for the prestige amongst our colleagues rather than the money. That isn't the case these days I'm afraid. IMHO those companies who operate only as patent trolls hold back innovation all over the place.
Neither of those things are inventions, nor are they things to be proud of. When Apple removed the headphone socket, they didn't say this was done to make an impressive new innovation. They said they could produce a slightly thinner device and they thought users wouldn't mind (whether you mind isn't the point here). So whether they were the first to do it (obviously not), it doesn't matter.
The “will” you refer to appears in a sub-clause of that sentence, a sub-clause which functions as the object of the main verb in the sentence, and that verb is “to forecast”. That meaning of that main verb implies that the sub-clause is in fact a conditional statement, despite looking like the simple future tense. (Consider the example: “maybe I’ll go”, or, as written longhand: “it may be that I will go”. That is not a definite statement, despite the apparent use of the future simple “will go”)
So, because the sentence is making a conditional statement, it is entirely correct to summarise it using “could”
…or “might” if you’re really sceptical of the source.
When my venerable old Note4 died, I exited the premium phone space. Not that I ever considered it to be one, it just ticked the boxes (S-Pen pun), as I'd only ever had one smartphone without a stylus, and I missed it, so adopted the Note series. I now rock a Moto Pro Stylus. It's priced as a commodity item, at a very reasonable ~£200. I don't feel I'm missing out on anything with it being rigid, so a folding device will not tempt be back to premium prices, I think they are barking up the wrong tree there. I don't know what would tempt me to spend significantly more on a phone.
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