Skip to main content Tom's Guide Tom's Guide Search Tom's Guide View Profile Best Picks Entertainment Technology Magazines Why subscribe? The best tech tutorials and in-depth reviews Try a single issue or save on a subscription Issues delivered straight to your door or device From$12.99View Deal Amazon Spring Sale MacBook Air M4 Nintendo Switch 2 Best mattress Wordle Today iPhone Flip should have been released years ago — it's time Apple started taking risks again Tom Pritchard 23 March 2025 The foldable iPhone has taken far too long to develop, and it's indicative of a bigger problem When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: EverythingApplePro) Over the past few decades, Apple has built up a reputation as a pioneer of sorts. Even before the iPhone and the iPod, the company was producing products that pushed the envelope — even if its reputation flagged a little in the late ‘90s. Often, Apple isn’t the first company to bring new and interesting ideas to market, but its efforts can help popularize them among the masses. Sadly, though, that version of Apple is not the same one we're seeing today. If that Apple still existed, we probably wouldn’t still be waiting around for the foldable iPhone Flip. Rather than simply maintaining the status quo and chasing the mythical perfect product behind the scenes, it’s about time Apple cut to the chase. Stop goofing off, relying on iPhone sales to keep things afloat and release new and interesting products without making us wait a decade for them. You may like iPhone Flip: Has Apple already missed its moment to make a foldable phone? iPhone Flip: Everything we know about Apple's foldable phone plans The state of Apple products today (Image credit: Future) It’s easy to be cynical and claim that Apple just releases the same thing every single year. In some ways that is true, but in others it’s not. Whether you’re talking iPhones or Macs, Apple does update its products at a pretty steady pace: better cameras, tweaked designs, continually improving software and so on. That doesn’t change the fact that Apple doesn't seem to be very adventurous with its existing products any more. The Apple Vision Pro was certainly a step in the right direction, since the headset was new and had a lot of interesting qualities. Sadly, it also falls into many of the same pitfalls as other VR and AR devices. It was uncomfortable to wear for long periods, couldn’t really justify its own existence, and cost far too much. The last one was always going to be the biggest problem, since the $3,500 price tag doesn’t really go with a niche, impulsive product like the Vision Pro. What’s most interesting about the Vision Pro is that certain camps within Apple reportedly didn’t want to release the headset. Evidently the Apple Industrial Design team were against a mixed reality headset, instead preferring to keep working until Apple could create a bonafide pair of AR Glasses — aka the Apple Glasses. According to reports, CEO Tim Cook and COO Jeff Williams had to overrule them, and make sure the Vision Pro actually went on sale — for better or worse. But that report is telling of what might be happening behind the scenes at Apple. I get the impression there may be a culture of perfectionism at work. And that’s more counterproductive than anything. Apple seems too scared to get it wrong (Image credit: #iOS Beta News/YouTube) Reading reports about upcoming Apple products, like what turned out to be the Vision Pro, it always felt as though Apple was working at a glacial pace. I’m under no illusions that new products take a long time to make a reality, thanks to all the relevant research and development required. But it still felt as though Apple wasn’t making a whole lot of progress. Hearing that there were people at Apple resistant to the idea of releasing the Vision Pro was actually pretty eye-opening. And, fairly or unfairly, it feels like certain rumored products are stuck in development for so long because Apple is too scared to actually release them in a state that’s anything less than perfect. Think about it. There have been rumors about the possibility of a foldable iPhone for years now. Speculation pre-dates the first commercial foldable that went on sale, 2018’s Royole FlexPai, all the way back to at least 2016. Meanwhile current rumors suggest the phone won’t begin mass production into next year, which would mean that it's probably not going to hit the market until 2027 at the earliest. While foldables were still semi-mythical in 2016, the best foldable phones are now pretty commonplace. Samsung is gearing up to release the 7th generation of its foldable phones this summer while Apple has nothing to actually show for it. Recent reports suggest that the foldable display requirements are high on Apple’s foldable wish list. Those reports include wanting to completely eliminate the crease, while also expecting its display supplier to meet very specific technical requirements. In other words, the iPhone Flip apparently requires a better screen than any foldable we’ve seen so far and that’s probably quite a tall order. It feels like the long-rumored but ultimately abandoned Apple Car was in a similar situation. Apple was so hell-bent on developing a true driver-free autonomous car that it never stopped to think about whether it should be jumping straight into the deep end like that. Rather than taking baby steps, Apple wanted to floor it right out of the gate and do something that hadn’t been done before. The problem is that the fear of getting it wrong might as well be a downward spiral. Apple needs to get its products to a point where it’s good enough, and figure out the process of perfecting it after it’s already in the hands of real people. At least that way, they can make some money back from product sales, and get invaluable feedback from real-world users. Because clearly that didn’t happen with the Vision Pro, or else EyeSight would never have made it to the production model. There’s no such thing as a perfect product or launch (Image credit: Macrumors) It’s rare for any first generation product to be excellent, even if it’s being made by Apple. Even the iPhone, the most valuable product in Apple’s portfolio, had a rocky beginning. The original iPhone model lacked a lot of the features we know and love today. I’m not talking about more advanced features that arrived over the past 18 years, like wireless charging, Face ID, or even the flashlight. I’m talking about things that were readily available at the time, like 3G connectivity, MMS messaging, copy-and-paste functionality, or even GPS 1— which made the preinstalled Google Maps app much less useful. Video recording also wouldn’t arrive until two years later, with the release of iPhone 3GS, and the App Store was totally absent until July 2008 — 13 months after the first iPhone was released. I remember similar complaints about products like the iPad, Apple Watch and the USB-C MacBook Pros (though, with hindsight about all the revisions Apple has made to the MacBook Pro since 2016, that criticism may have been well-deserved). Still, it’s not as though Apple pulled any of these products from sale and gave up. They spent years refining the devices, and eventually releasing newer versions that offered users a better experience. Or at least, that was the idea. Because you can’t get a device like the iPhone 16 Pro Max on the first try, you need to start with somewhere — even if it means that device is less than perfect as a result. Plus there have been multiple instances where even the modern 21st Century Apple gets things wrong and leaves them as they are. Just look at the Magic Mouse and its bizarrely-placed charging port. Apple shouldn’t chase trends, but it still needs to capitalize on them (Image credit: #iOS Beta News / Tom's Guide) We all know that Apple doesn’t need to chase trends. Historically, Apple’s been the kind of company to do things its own way. In some cases that meant kickstarting some of its own trends, or cementing existing ones. We’ve also seen that Apple doesn’t pay much attention to what rivals are doing, especially in the smartphone space, and prefers to implement new technologies when it’s good and ready. AI is a notable exception, with Apple reportedly being caught off-guard by the recent AI boom. So it had to spend money to try and catch up to the competition. That's why Apple Intelligence remains very much a work in progress. But there comes a point where Apple has to stop getting in its own way. Just because a product or service is a little rough around the edges doesn’t mean that it isn’t good enough to be sent out into the world. Apple Intelligence is indicative of that, and there’s no reason why Apple can’t do the same for hardware products. As long as those new products work, are reasonably priced (by Apple standards) and don’t explode randomly, then there’s no reason to keep everything in a perpetual state of development limbo. 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Tom Pritchard Social Links Navigation UK Phones Editor Tom is the Tom's Guide's UK Phones Editor, tackling the latest smartphone news and vocally expressing his opinions about upcoming features or changes. It's long way from his days as editor of Gizmodo UK, when pretty much everything was on the table. He’s usually found trying to squeeze another giant Lego set onto the shelf, draining very large cups of coffee, or complaining about how terrible his Smart TV is. 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