Phone makers have been vying to unleash the next best foldable phone, with Samsung seemingly leading the pack. Apple’s absence in this race, however, is palpable.
Samsung, which has been releasing flexible devices since the Galaxy Fold in 2019, doesn’t deny that its Cupertino rival will eventually catch up—it’s only a matter of when. It’s been a running joke in the Android community that Apple has been a tad slow with features that have already been around for years (read: customizable smartphone themes), and now, the South Korean tech giant is fanning the flames further with a new campaign about Apple forcing users to wait for bendy gadgets.
The new spot,On the Fence, is pretty on the nose. It shows a customer at an imaginary Apple Store climbing up a fence and peering into a neighboring Samsung retail location in awe.
“You can’t sit on the fence,” says an actor mimicking an Apple Genius. “But on the Samsung side, they have folding phones and epic cameras,” the googly-eyed customer replies.
“We’re waiting for all that to come over here,” the employee responds. When questioned why Apple users have to wait, the worker says, “ Because that’s what we do. We wait.”
Reports about Apple’s roadmap suggest that its first foldable device will arrive in 2024—half a decade after the unveiling of Samsung’s first Galaxy Fold. Even then, it probably won’t be a phone but an iPad that can be bent into a touchscreen laptop of sorts.