Foldables and dual screens break smartphone's design stalemate

After over a decade of rectangular glass slabs, hardware manufacturers are shipping meaningfully different form factors—foldables from Samsung and others, and now Apple's rumored iPhone Duo—that change how software and user behavior work, not just aesthetics. Smartphone design has become a bottleneck for the entire industry; once Apple validates a new form factor, Android makers typically follow. Here the dynamic is reversed: Apple is copying rivals' risk-taking. If these devices gain traction beyond early adopters, smartphone design could reset every five years instead of stagnating, opening new product categories that don't yet have names.