I wanted folding phones, but the new one quickly got old

Let’s be honest: cell phones, even the best, are no longer so exciting. They are completely more powerful than what we really need, they all have neat multilens cameras and they all look essentially the same. I really hoped that folding phones would provide a much-needed chance adrenaline for the industry, but more than a year after they arrived, they flowed like a damp firework and made me feel disappointed.

I worked for CNET for a decade and most of that time I covered cell phones. I saw a lot of coming and going. I’ve seen the rise and fall of BlackBerry, and I’ve seen weird phone ideas like the Russian Yotaphone with its second screen for e-ink and I saw the short trend of curved phones like the LG G4 and Samsung’s Galaxy Round. But over the last few years, it seems like real innovation has been set aside, and every business wants to make the easiest versions of the same product.

Think of the following phrases: “A large, vibrant screen”, “A good camera-rear camera setup”, an attractive design of metal and glass. ” Can you think of many phones to which these sentiments could not be applied? The result is that all the phones are pretty good, but that means they are equally boring as well. Each year’s refresh adds a few megapixels to the camera, or an extra bit of screen size. Or a slight adaptation to a design that basically just remains a rectangular sheet.

I understand. Innovation is expensive and spending millions of dollars on a new idea means you have a guarantee that it will sell well. LG invented it at the expense of phones like the strange, modular G5, which did not sell well, and now the company wants to believe sells his phone business.

When folding phones came, my mood lifted. Here was innovation. Here was this new technology that really took me back when I first saw it in person and left me excited again about the possibilities of what phones can become. I know I was not the only one who loved the idea of ​​the phone you carry on your wrist like a watch and unfolds it when you need the bigger screen. But where is it?

The folds we do have are … good. The Galaxy Z Flip and Moto Razr’s clamshell design is neat in the sense that it makes a large screen phone more affordable by folding in half while the Galaxy Fold 2 and Huawei Mate X are essentially tablets that are folded in half to become cell phones, which is also good.

But beyond the bending screen, they didn’t really push boundaries. They have not changed the way we use our phones or brought about a revolution that is so groundbreaking that it completely changes the look of mobile devices. They use the same version of Android, with only a few minor tweaks to some apps to give some additional features, but in addition. It’s really the same phone as before, but you can fold it in half. I find it very telling that I have the Galaxy Fold and Z Flip in my house, but they are in a drawer between other phones and I have no great desire to get it out again.

And you pay handsomely for the one-time feature, as all folding phones cost significantly more than the normal flagships of their respective manufacturers. This in turn means that adoption is low, giving third-party businesses – or developers – little incentive to think of new and creative ways to use this technology. Over time, folding phones can be thrown in the pile of other gimmicks, along with banana phones, Samsung’s camera / phone hybrid and 3D phone display.

But I do not hope. I hope it sticks and develops into something useful and exciting. Honestly, I hope Apple picks up on the matter, as it tends to use new technology only when they can use it really usefully, though perhaps not always (I’m looking at you, 3D Touch).

But most of all, I hope any mobile business is not afraid to try and innovate and do something different. Phones used to be fun, and phone conversations were genuinely exciting to see what amazing new technology is being introduced this time around.

That excitement is not where it used to be. It’s a light bulb flickering at the bottom of the fireplace, and every generic phone call threatens to be the bucket of sand that can completely extinguish it. There’s a chance that folding phones may still be the igniter that makes the glare back into a roaring hell, but I do not cross my fingers.