Foldable smartphones are on the rise and are starting to have a greater influence on the mobile market. At first, it seemed like a gimmick that wouldn’t catch on, but now most of the world’s leading smartphone providers have put a lot of focus into improving their foldable lines.
The market is expected to more than double in size in the next four years, meaning that app developers need to consider this format when designing their products. There could be a significant shift coming in the way developers think about user experience.
Foldables Demand a New UX Mindset
The most notable thing about foldable smartphones is that they bring about multiple screens. For years, app developers have been operating with the single-screen idea, but now they need to take other factors into account. Foldables can have a closed screen setup, partially folded, and fully open, and the layout changes in each of these conditions.
That means that developers need to come up with fluid experiences that can transition between the different states without taking anything away from the user experience. This is referred to as app continuity, and leading smartphone companies such as Samsung have released guidelines on how developers can adhere to this.
Developers can also try to come up with ideas to make their apps look even better and work in new ways on foldable devices. Even though there may be some initial teething problems, the rise of foldables also brings many opportunities for improvements. For example, apps can introduce additional windows that they wouldn’t have been able to include before on traditional smartphones.
Key Industries May Need to Adapt
With foldable smartphones now gaining greater traction, some of the leading industries, such as social media and entertainment, will need to adapt. These two sectors drove the growth of smartphones in the 2010s, and they could help push foldable devices as well if companies can come up with innovative ways to use the new screen format.
For example, streaming sites commonly used on phones, such as Netflix, could allow people to watch series and play related games at the same time. Another key example of mobile optimised platforms are UK slots online, with all the games specifically designed with mobile UX in mind. With foldable devices, online casinos could adapt their mobile optimisations to fit this new screen formatting, such as making the ability to have a chat window open on one of the screens at the same time.
Social media sites could adapt how they present content to users on foldable smartphones. The devices would make it easier for people to watch content and comment on it on the two separate sides of the screen. There could also be a rise in multi-screen content, with creators releasing different camera angles in their videos to be displayed across the screens.
Foldable smartphones are no longer just a niche novelty and are clearly here to stay. There could be some major changes on the way in how apps are presented on these devices, and this could lead to an evolution in user experience.