Life and 💀 of multi-fold design
A few weeks ago, I expressed my love for the tri-fold smartphone form factor. Sadly, Samsung has just discontinued the Galaxy Z Fold Tri-Fold, mere months after launching it. Oh well. There are three strong reasons why the tri/multi-fold will be the most common multi-fold in the future, despite Samsung choosing not to restock this particular model. 1) The use case is logical: All the benefits of a tri/multi-fold still hold. From my love letter on 3 March: "First, optionality: use just the amount of screen the job demands. Folded up, half-open, or fully unfolded. Second, potential: a trifold creates entirely new design and interaction questions. What is a two- or three-screen moment? How do we design for it? [...] Third, the all-in-one argument: the fully unfolded Galaxy Z TriFold (launched Dec '25) becomes a 10" screen, enough to replace a tablet or laptop for most of us.” 2) The numbers: Huawei has so far sold 1.2 million of its own multi-fold, the Mate XT, netting €2.8 billion in revenue (all figures from IDC). The second-generation XTs is now available in China. 3) The work in progress: Hiring for multi-fold designers and engineers remains steady in job postings across Europe, Korea, and Japan (search your favourite source for multi-fold interaction designer or engineer). A Stockholm-based studio is working on multi-fold-specific interfaces for a client ahead of a 2027 release. And there’s a team in Seoul that “accidentally” posted a multifold prototype video... and a lot more. En fjäril gör ingen sommar, as we say here in Sweden (English equivalent: one swallow does not make a summer). Yet there is nothing beyond Samsung discontinuing the first version of the Tri-Fold to suggest we’ll all be stuck with single/book-fold devices forever. Tri/multi-fold innovation and development continues uninterrupted because the use case makes perfect sense! Other things ⫘ The Fog Garden returns to Berlin in April. ⫘ The birth of Robyn, the mural at ⚲ Södermannagatan 20-24 in Stockholm. Spotted a moment ago.
Over to you!
Who else would enjoy reading 'On my mind'? Tap 'Share this' below or point them to rumicat.com/orvet. Thank you, coffee is on me.
|