Samsung Unveils Galaxy Z Fold 8 Lineup Days Before Apple’s First Foldable iPhone

Tech history shows late entrants can redefine categories—think Apple’s 2001 iPod eclipsing Diamond Rio or the 2010 iPad overtaking Microsoft’s 2001 Tablet PC concept—yet first-mover lessons still matter. Samsung’s seventh-generation foldables reflect a broader arc: smartphones have plateaued in slab form, pushing firms toward hybrid devices that blur phone, tablet and eventually wearable computing. By pairing Gemini AI and aggressive pricing, Samsung is betting that accumulated know-how plus ecosystem breadth will stave off the ‘Apple halo’ that habitually normalises new form factors for the mass market. Whether this launch is remembered a century from now hinges on whether foldables mature into the dominant personal-computing node (as clamshell laptops did after the 1982 Grid Compass) or remain a premium niche; Apple’s imminent entry is the inflection point that will either propel the format to mainstream status or expose its limits.