Microsoft is heavily rumored to be deep in development of Surface Andromeda, a folding tablet with telephony that Microsoft hopes will bridge the gap between smartphones and PCs in ways other Surface devices can't. The project has been a difficult one for Microsoft, according to reports, but work is on-going amidst rumors of cancellation, delays, and other problems.
Another major tech player is also rumored to be looking at a folding device, namely Samsung, the largest phone manufacturer on Earth. Will Samsung beat Microsoft to the punch? Does it even matter? There's a thread in our forum on this very subject.
Regardless of who gets to the folding form factor first, Microsoft will continue to be plagued by a weak app ecosystem, which will be even more severe with Andromeda than it was with Windows 10 Mobile. There are rumors and reports to suggest Andromeda may be able to tap into Windows' extensive legacy app ecosystem in some way, but we don't know whether those rumors will pan out in practice. Even if they did, desktop apps will be ugly and virtually unusable on a small-screen device without a mouse, defeating the entire point of a portable device.
Samsung has access to the full Android app ecosystem for whatever becomes its folding phone. That said, Android has never been a major player in the tablet market, dominated by Apple's iPad. There's no reason to think that Samsung, which doesn't control the Android OS, will be able to produce a folding tablet that actually marries form and function, in a way that Microsoft's "Andromeda" will be able to, utilizing an operating system built from the ground up to be folded.
What do you think? Jump in the forum thread and let us know.
From the forums: Samsung launching folding device in early 2019
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