If you’re waiting impatiently for the first folding iPhone, Samsung has you covered. In an attempt to sell iPhone owners on the benefits of a folding phone, the company has created a demo that lets you use two iPhones to experience a simulation of the Galaxy Z Fold 5.
The app lets you simulate both a single display stretched across two screens, and drag-and-drop multitasking between different apps on different screens (well, phones) …
Macworld’s Romana Loyola was somewhat impressed by the demo, but wasn’t sold on needing either a Fold 5 or a folding iPhone.
Samsung’s Try Galaxy app
Things kicked off earlier this year when Samsung first hit on the idea of letting iPhone users try out the Galaxy user interface on their iPhones.
It’s just a web app, which limits what it can do, but does make it very easy to try: You simply visit the Try Galaxy website and “install” the app by saving it to your home screen.
Once that’s done, the “app” gives users a “little taste of Samsung Galaxy” by simulating One UI 5.1, Samsung’s skin on top of Android 13. From there, there’s a quick navigation tutorial, and then you’re good to play around with the UI. Everything works roughly the same as on a Samsung device, but it’s noticeably laggier, probably because it is just running through a web app.
Now with a simulated Galaxy Z Fold 5
Samsung has now updated the app to allow a simulation of the Galaxy Z Fold 5. This is achieved by “installing” the web app on two iPhones, which you place side-by-side.
An update to Samsung’s “Try Galaxy” app now utilizes two connected iPhones and emulates a single Galaxy Z Fold screen. It works by simply displaying one-half of the shown content on each device’s display. With both iPhones stuck together, one unified larger display is shown, which offers as big of a footprint as the Galaxy Z Fold.
Loyola tried it with an iPhone 14 Pro Max alongside an iPhone 13 Pro Max.
Once the app is running on both phones, you tap the Fold Experience button to make them act as one device. You can’t actually do very much – it’s a demo rather than a full virtual device – but you can at least see what an app looks like stretched across two screens, and also try dragging-and-dropping between two apps in a kind of Split View multitasking UI.
But Loyola wanted to dial it up a notch.
I took the experience one step further and I taped the two iPhones together to create a “hinge” […]
Yeah, I know that a foldable phone is engineered to be foldable and thinner than two iPhones taped together but it’s actually pretty close (13.4mm for the Galaxy Fold and 15.5mm for the two iPhones). And it was thick enough to make me want the whole thing to be over.
His conclusions? Not switching to Android, and not convinced he needs a folding iPhone. But if you try it yourself, do share your thoughts in the comments.
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