The first Apple foldable iPhone appears to be delayed again: details surfacing from the supply chain suggest serious engineering problems during the test phase.

We’re talking core design validation failures, the kind that force teams to tear back to fundamentals before the device moves toward mass production. Apple had lined up an initial production target somewhere between 7 and 8 million units.

Worth remembering that the number exists because Apple believed demand would be there. It probably still is, but demand doesn’t matter if the hardware isn’t ready to ship, as per the NikkeiAsia report (via Jukan).

Here’s the thing about building a foldable: the problems are always the same.

• Hinge durability
• Crease visibility
• Internal display reliability over thousands of cycles
• Structural integrity after real-world abuse

Samsung knows this intimately because the company bled for it publicly. The company spent years perfecting foldables with each generation. The current foldable lineup operates on a foundation that took years to stabilize.

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The first foldable iPhone has to be close to perfect. Apple’s entire market identity depends on it. A stumbling debut isn’t just bad PR; it’s a category-defining mistake that competitors will reference for a decade.

A late entry into a mature category requires something more than polish. It requires a genuinely different product, and right now Apple is still figuring out if its product can even survive testing.

The post Samsung spent years fixing foldables, now Apple is learning why that was so hard appeared first on Sammy Fans.