Tech Brew Ride Home - Do I Want A Foldable Phone? With MG Siegler

Episode Date: March 9, 2019

You know MG Siegler. Once upon a time, he was one of the most prominent tech journalists in the land, when he wrote for TechCrunch. Now-a-days he is a prominent venture capitalist at GV. But he still likes to talk about gadgets. Maybe you’ve heard him do so on Gruber’s podcast. Today’s bonus episode is nothing sophisticated, no deep-dive level of journalism… it’s just two dudes looking at the recent slate of foldable phones and deciding if we want one. Logianalytics.com/ride Linkedin.com/ride Subscribe to the Premium, Ad-Free Podcast Feed! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to a bonus episode of the Tech Meme Ride Home. I'm Brian McCullough. You probably know M.G. Siegler.

Once upon a time, he was one of the most prominent tech journalists in the land when he wrote for TechCrunch. Actually, for many years, he was at the very pinnacle of the TechMeme leaderboard, which is a thing. Check that out. Nowadays, MG is a prominent venture capitalist at GV. But he still likes to talk about gadgets. Maybe you've heard him do so on Gruber. podcast. Today's bonus episode is nothing sophisticated. There's no deep dive level of journalism here. It's just two dudes looking at the recent slate of foldable phones and wondering if

foldable phones are really a thing and wondering if it's a thing that we need in our lives. Let's start with the first one, which I don't somebody, I feel like some random might have snuck out a foldable phone before this. But the first one that we should think about is the galaxy fold. All right. There's sort of two models of these foldable phones that people have gone with so far, and the Galaxy Fold is the first one. Essentially, it's two screens, right?

So that when it's closed, you have a screen. It looks like a normal phone. You've got a screen on the front. And then when you open it up, then it sort of looks like a tablet. Right. But it does look like a normal phone, sort of, except that, like, I don't know. The screen is pretty small on the forward facing one. The first thing that I said was it's so narrow, right?

And it even, it's not only, the phone itself is narrow. It's sort of like the dimensions of like an eraser from a chalkboard, right? It does look like that, yeah. But then. And especially because it's so thick, right? Well, it's narrow. We'll get to that in a second. Yeah.

But I'm talking about, let's start with just that if it's closed and you're using it as a phone. It also has super thick bezels so that in the sense that it's almost like you can only use it when closed for like triage, which maybe is interesting. Right. But that's not like the greatest screen I've ever seen just for using it as a phone. Right. I totally agree. It looks like, you know, it's just basically a compromise to allow you to have sort of a regular phone factor. that has the ability to open up into something larger,

but we'll get to it, I know. But I think I like the way that Motorola is thinking about this more than the way that seems. Well, okay, so then let's talk about that chunkiness. So closed up, would it feel like I'm walking around with an eraser in my pocket? And by the way, no one got hands on with this one. So no one really can tell yet.

Yes, that's always an interesting signal, of course, when they keep these things in the sterile enclosed environment. I mean, even Apple's done that in the past with certain products. It's not like they always do hands on and you can touch everything. But they tend to do that more, of course. And this thing is, you know, it was vacuum sealed away and no one could get their hands on it. But even still, you could see it, of course, and they released the video, right, of what it looks like, presumably in use.

And the weirdest thing about the thickness beyond how thick it is, how fat it is, there's also that gap, right? In between when you do fold it up, it's not sort of like evenly folded flat. It's like that Microsoft laptop, one of the surface laptops, yeah. The surface laptop, yeah, that has that weird arch thing that doesn't allow it to be flush, the two sides is to be flush with one another. So I'm just not a fan of that look. It sort of looks like, you know, in certain of the product shots, it looks like, I don't know, like two iPods sort of stacked on top of each other. But again, it's not fully flush. So it's just a weird sort of look.

And what would that feel like in your pocket? I mean, it can't be great compared to what the current sort of phone models are like. And I still, I mean, it's interesting, again, closed up. Like, I get it mostly what you would do with your phone nine times out of ten is sort of triage where it's like, oh, this notification came in that. So then maybe that super narrow. screen when it's closed up is not a problem. But all right, let's move on to the next one, the Huawei Mate X, which again, I said on the show, it's super great for people that are already calling the iPhone 10, the iPhone X.

This one is literally called the X, the Mate X. Okay, but this is the different model of doing this, so that essentially there's really only one screen, right? Instead of calling this a foldable phone, it's really. a tablet that you can just happen to close up and then it's in sort of like a phone factor. And that makes more sense to me because I feel like it's, you know, at least utilizing the same screen when folded turns into, you know, more of a phone form factor screen. And that makes more sense. I just think, I have a hard time believing that that's going to be like any good in sort

of that, I guess, in either version of it, unless they'd like totally customized Android to work sort of in a different way than it does right now. It's basically, is it going to be flipping between the phone model version of Android and then the tablet model version of Android? And like, you know, there's going to be cognitive load like for a user trying to do that. It feels like they would almost have to do something from scratch, I think, to make this this thing actually workable in a regular daily invite. But, again, I'm not done talking about the different parts of the MaidX. But I want to poke at that a little bit.

All of these phones are presupposing that people will want to then, well, like, I'm going to do more serious stuff, so I will unfold. What do you think about that? Like, do you want, like, even though that feels like, oh, it takes a second to unfold, but like that is, there is some friction there. Do you think people want to do that? So I should be like the key demographic for this type of device because so I carry around the iPhone and I carry around an iPad like 99% of the time. I have both devices with me. And the thing in my mind that sticks out with these things is right now I carry around both devices because I use them for very different purposes. I basically use the phone as my primary sort of computing device and like you said, triage of notifications and things like that and just quickly scrolls.

through things when I have a moment. And then the iPad is much more of a sort of lean back type thing where if I want to read something longer and because I have the keyboard attached to it, if I want to do some email while on the go, that's what I use it for. But I view them as two very different devices. So these guys are all trying to basically say, you know, this should be one device that the phone should fold out into the tablet and then you can have both. I just have a really hard time believing that that's going to be useful for a lot of people. Because I do think that the standalone nature of those devices with the iPad in particular is sort of what made it compelling to a lot of people. There's been a lot of talk that Android tablets haven't done that

well, right? And a big part of it, I do think, is because basically the way that the software was built and the way that they've been using it has been sort of like a larger just version of an Android phone. And people joked when the iPad came out that it was basically a larger iPhone. And I do think that the that is the thing that if you had to criticize the iPad, you know, however long it's been in existence now, you know, seven, eight years, whatever. I do think that the things that they got wrong about it are the parts where it seems just like a bigger iPhone. And, you know, there's rumors this year that they're going to be making updates to the iPad software specifically to sort of alleviate some of those concerns. Because I do think that they should have different, really different types of

software on them. And I see no indication with any of these devices that that. they're going to do it that way. So I just think it's sort of flawed from the get-go with all of them. Well, I mean, some people have said that that's why there have been no hands-on yet because actually Google hasn't, the software isn't really, really ready yet for anybody to see if that works, like you're describing. But real quick, before we leave the Maidex, what do you think about the screen being on the outside of the device? Worried about that at all? Yeah, I mean, and right, that's another major part of the, that they're all sort of these plastic polymer screens now, right?

So they're not because glass, I know Corning and some others are trying to work on it. I did a segment on that on today's show, right, exactly. So they're working on this. But it seems like there's a real risk of scratching, of all sorts of different issues with these. And of course, the biggest one that they've, I think they've already owned up to, right, is the fact that right now, after a certain number of times, a full. and unfolding, they increases it. And so, like, can you imagine just after, after, you know, in the success state, you've used

your advice so long, it just has like this, this natural crease. Well, and also you paid $2,000 plus for it, too. Exactly. Exactly. That's, I think, like, when it, what it really boils down to is, is, you know, I think they're releasing these devices. It's cool that they're pushing the envelope in, in some regards, right? You want, you want people pushing the envelope.

Someone like Apple's never going to release something. like in this state because it's, it's, you know, clearly not polished enough just from everything we're seeing. And so you need someone like Samsung who's willing to do that. At the same time, they're charging people $2,000 to play with a prototype. Like, is that really good for your customers to be doing that? Well, one more, I want to say that in my mind, the idea of it being one screen as opposed to, well, there's the big screen, but then there's this sort of janky screen on the backside order. I think one screen makes more sense to me. And also, Also, we should point out that the mate X is super, super thin when unfolded because it's sort of doing what like those most recent Kindles have where it's like you've got that little thick thing.

I thought of the same thing. That would be the handle. So this would be like my Brian's personal two laws for portability of a device. Like number one, can I hold it comfortably in my hand in one hand between my thumb and forefinger? Like everyone's chasing what the pad was on Star Trek the next generation, right? And they always used it one hand. You would hold it and you would throw it down on a table and not worry about it. Right.

So this, the Matex kind of looks like it comes close to that. And then my second law of portability is like if I threw it at you and I hit you in the temple, would it kill you? Like the original iPad, I could straight up kill you. The iPad pros, I could, right. And so again, this gets closer to. what seems to me like this is more portable where I could use this holding on as a strap hanger on the train heading home. You know what I mean? Yeah.

And so the more updated version of the Star Trek device is the tablet thing that they have in Westworld, right? And that's sort of like the new version of what sort of people are lusting after, myself included. Like it seems like that's a pretty interesting device. Have you watched the expanse? The things that they use on the expanse, I have not. What's the difference with that? Well, it's just, it looks like a sheet of glass,

which I guess is Johnny Ives' ultimate end goal in life. It's just a sheet of glass. And then also it has, right, no buttons, no ports, no nothing. And then it has, and then it also does funny little things where it, like, you know, holograms pour out of the sides. So, like, you don't even, you're not even limited to the screen or whatever. But again, it is just like, it's a sheet of glass that's almost as, thin as a piece of paper. Like, that's what everybody ultimately wants to get to. Yes. And I think the one

thing that that isn't brought up, though, in all those things. So, like, at least with the Westworld device, you know, they show them using it and typing really quickly because people are sort of, I guess, in that world, like, used to typing very quickly on slabs of glass. And of course, we do that now on our phones. But we don't, most people, it seems like, still don't do that on their tablets. Everyone that I know that's a power user of a tablet device has an external keyboard for it, right? And And imagine having to carry around an external keyboard with this thing. So just another sort of layer of either thickness and or, you know, something else that you would just have to carry around in order to use it sort of in tablet form. But I'm with you that like sort of the ideal state is something that you can easily hold sort of like that Kindle you were talking about in one hand.

And that's honestly why I still like the iPad Mini, which I was sort of up in arms about when I thought that they were, you know, ending it. It sounds like now it's coming back, which is great because I do like it for that very. reason, even versus the iPad Pro, which, you know, is is a good device in many regards. It is pretty, you know, exhausting to hold in one hand over a very long extended period of time, which is the upsell of what these devices are trying to do, right? It's like if you want, if you need the bigger screen, you want to watch a video, if you want to play a video game, they keep using the maps example of seeing like a broader map. So if you want to be holding this thing in your hand and using it, like, is it actually going to be good for that? And that's totally

TBD. All right, one more, which is, we haven't seen yet, but we've seen some rumored, I guess, patent applications. And this would be Motorola's, again, rumored return of the razor, a sort of clamshell design. And all right, this makes a ton of sense in a lot of ways, because then if it's a clamshell design, the screen's on the inside, you close it up, it's a little more protected. But then also, just on the basic, simple level of people miss that sense. satisfying feel of ending a call or a text and snapping something shut.

I mean, I guess we still miss the sense of like from a 30s movie, like slamming down a phone on a cradle or something like that. What do you think? Well, actually, two questions. What do you think of this as a design and then the potential return of the razor? So this is the design, as I sort of alluded to earlier, makes a little bit more sense to me, again, just in the sort of sketches that we see from the patent applications. in that

so they sort of are owning up to the thing that the galaxy fold doesn't seem to want to own up to which is that because of the way that the razor was designed back in the day and if they really are hearkening back to that design it allows you to have like a very small screen sort of in the front

and I could see that being actually interesting for just for notifications, right? Like what have you just had a screen for notifications and nothing else? Maybe it had at a glance of like where you are in a map or something like that, something you could see in like a chick lit form. But again, I like that concept more than trying to, you know,

create the faux smartphone screen when it's folded. And then on the inner screen, obviously everyone, again, knows the razor design from yesteryear where it had this elongated form that would open and you would have the keypad at the bottom and then the screen, you know, up top. And so if it's all one screen and you could just have, the digital keypad when you needed to type. It makes more sense to me, but who knows how they'll actually execute this thing.

All right. So then of the three, maybe the most appealing to you would be the clamshell. I think so. It may also just be, you know, my younger year speaking. I was, I just remember being super excited. Nostalgia. When I did finally get the Motorola razor, I was one of the later people to get it because I was on Verizon and back in the day it was a long wait for Verizon users to actually get it.

And so I think I was there sort of waiting for it when it did finally arrive. And I was super happy with it. I mean, they used it for years and years. It was my last phone before the iPhone. And it was a great, it was a great. It was great how obviously how small it was, how easy it could fit in your in your pocket. But then, of course, as you note, the slamming down the the thing to end a call was very satisfying. All right, a bunch of questions, maybe rapid fire to wrap up here. What's your take on if people are excited about the concept of a foldable phone? Like, every time a new announcement comes out, it makes headlines, but I don't get a sense.

Do you that people are like feverish for this or excited about this? To me, I mean, I think part of it is in what we talked about, the Star Trek device, you know, you mentioned the expanse and then the Westworld device. Like I think part of it's sort of wrapped up in that. We've always had the sci-fi elements of this being, you know, the sort of an obvious thing to do in the future that we'll have in the future. But I also just think, honestly, it's largely just a gimmick. And it reminds me in a way of maybe not as bad as sort of like 3D TV and like, you know,

all the various different gimmicky TV things that they've tried to roll it out, the curve screens and things like that to try to just sell more models. I do think it's just a byproduct of the fact that we are at sort of smartphone penetration levels now, where the things that we do are basically, you know, adding more cameras to the device. And that's like the big headline stuff. And that is making them better. But it's not, you know, it's not new in the same way that, you know, some of the new technologies have been in the years past. And so this is new, but I just think it's going to end up being a gimmick thing.

I have a hard time believing that people will actually like that. in that way, sort of talking about the 3D thing directly, it sort of reminds me of the fire phone. If you remember when Amazon launched it, and the big feature was like, you know, being able to tilt it and it had like this 3D thing. And like you were reading about that. And like I felt like from day one that was going to be a gimmick.

And it ended up being, of course, that way. And I just feel like I have a pretty strong sense that this is going to be the same way. Maybe someone nails this in a few years once the technology is ready. But I also, again, I think that it's more than that. I think that people, if they really want this to be, the device, they have to think about it, as a different type of device than either just a smartphone and or a tablet or the two merge together. I think it needs a different type of OS if it's going to work.

I think it just needs really to be a fully thought out product rather than just sort of this prototyping that they're doing right now. Well, I'm going to push back on you just a little bit because the main reason that I am not bearish on these yet is because I don't think that we can get that sort of experience of device envy until the first time we see someone pull this out and unfold it. And then people like you and me are going to be like, oh, yeah. The first time I see someone like pull it, pull it out, and like they're on the train, it's like, oh, no, no, no, they just unfolded it.

And oh, oh, oh, oh. So because what I'm saying is what you just said was every phone in the world looks the same. Do you know what I mean? So I don't know that we can under, estimate the idea of the device envy that the guys like you and I have and the device lust, where this is the first phone that will be absolutely obviously different than everything else out there. And then, and by the way, maybe the price actually works into this because then you're signaling, hey, I spent $2,000 on this thing. Yeah. And, you know, that was the most interesting,

I think, argument made, you know, after this thing was unveiled that, like, yeah, there is. is this is the new status symbol. Like people, oh, if you have this foldable, uh, galaxy fold device that you spent $2,000 on your phone and like, you know,

it is a status symbol. I just think for me a status symbol. It's not just the amount of money spent on it. I know it is for a lot of people, but if the thing is crap, it just shows that you have bad taste. It just shows that you're sort of a, you know,

a not a discerning buyer. Uh, and so the status is maybe not one that, that you would like to convey. It's not one that I would like to convey that I would like to convey that would that I would buy, you know, what is essentially a prototype for $2,000. Like, you're conveying that maybe you have the money to spend, but that you don't have the taste.

And so that's not what I would be buying. But I do hear you about, you know, if you see it and you immediately want to try it. I will say that when the original, before the original iPhone came out, I was, I was honestly in the camp of being pretty skeptical of it because I just thought like, this is a lot of money to spend, again, I had the rate. at the time. Was I going to spend, you know, $600, $700, $700, whatever the original iPhone was with no subsidies, of course, to be able to get that experience? And then I totally flipped that on day one when it launched. I walked into the Apple store. I picked it up. And within 10 seconds, I was, oh. Yeah. And I bought it right there. So there's possibility. I don't think that it's likely, but there is a possibility for what you're saying. Okay. Well, then this is the obvious final question. will over under Apple doing a foldable phone within, let's say, five years. And by the way, the main caveat that I said on the show today is there's no way Johnny Ive is ever going to release a phone with a plastic screen.

So we got to wait until Corning or whoever gets the glass right. But do you think over under five years Apple has a foldable phone? I think that there's a possibility. of under, but I actually think it would probably be something more like the iPad Mini that went foldable rather than an iPhone folding out. They'd come from the other direction. Yes, I think that it would be a tablet that sort of folds up to be more portable and maybe has some of that functionality like I'm talking about, a screen that's specifically

for notifications or something like that, rather than it being turning into a phone. That's how I could sort of see it if I squint. quick reminder that you didn't need to hear that ad break in the middle of this conversation because now an ad-free version of the show is available for $5 a month. Listen to the end of Friday's episode for more information on this, but also check the last link in the show notes to this show today to show some love to the podcast and to also get the show ad-free and never miss a weekend episode. Subscribe to the ad-free premium version of the tech meme.

ride home.