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Charlotte FC Forward Idan Toklomati Fined by MLS for Goal Celebration – Charlotte FC
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Development to Discontinue for ZW171 in Gynecologic, Thoracic, and GI Cancer
Image credit: © TheWaterMeloonProjec
-stock.adobe.com
The clinical development of the mesothelin-directed T-cell engager ZW171 for the treatment of patients with gynecological, thoracic, and gastrointestinal (GI) cancers is being discontinued, according to an announcement from Zymeworks.1
The decision stemmed from data from planned cohorts of a phase 1 trial (NCT06523803), which was evaluating the agent in patients with ovarian cancer and non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Based on results of the study, Zymeworks determined that further evaluation of the agent in dose expansion would be unlikely to support an acceptable risk:benefit profile for ZW171 given as monotherapy.
Patients currently receiving ZW171 as a part of the study will be allowed to continue treatment at investigator discretion. Those who have discontinued therapy will still be monitored as a part of the study’s safety follow-up.
“While this is a disappointing outcome given the promising preclinical activity observed with ZW171, we are deeply grateful to the patients, providers, and caregivers for their support and participation in the ZW171 phase 1 study,” Kenneth Galbraith, chair and chief executive officer of Zymeworks. “As part of Zymeworks’ disciplined approach to the management of our broad product portfolio, we are committed to careful and consistent evaluation of clinical progress for each product candidate to ensure our resources are directed towards those product candidates with the greatest potential impact for patients. We continue to advance our broader product pipeline, including the ongoing phase 1 trial of ZW191 and the initiation of a phase 1 study for ZW251 expected in 2025. We are also preparing an investigational new drug filing for ZW209, our DLL3-directed trispecific T-cell engager, planned in the first half of 2026.”
ZW171 Background and Phase 1 Trial Overview
Mesothelin is overexpressed in a variety of tumor types, and researchers have aimed at improving on early signs of efficacy and safety for agents targeting this glycoprotein.2 In preclinical studies, ZW171 had displayed the ability to induce potent preferential killing of mesothelin-overexpressing target cells and stimulate mesothelin-dependent T-cell activation.
The open-label, multicenter study was enrolling patients at least 18 years of age with pathologically confirmed, locally advanced unresectable and/or metastatic mesothelin-expressing cancers.3 Patients needed to have malignancies that were refractory to all available standard-of-care (SOC) treatment or cancers without SOC treatment available. Patients who were unable tolerate or refused SOC therapy were allowed to participate. Other key inclusion criteria comprised an ECOG performance status of 0 or 1, adequate organ function, and adequate cardiac left ventricular function, defined by a left ventricular ejection fraction of at least 50%.
The study excluded patients who received a prior allogenic tissue or solid organ transplantation within 5 years of enrollment; those with ongoing, clinically significant toxicity of grade 2 or higher from prior treatments; patients with advanced or metastatic, symptomatic visceral spread that could create short-term life-threatening complications; those with acute or chronic uncontrolled renal disease, pancreatitis, or liver disease; and patients with active or recurrent, clinically significant autoimmune disease requiring systemic high-dose corticosteroids or immunosuppressive drugs.
All patients received ZW171 in a dose-escalation manner.
Safety, including the incidence of dose-limiting toxicities, cytokine release syndrome, immune effector cell–associated neurotoxicity syndrome, and clinical abnormalities, served as a primary end point in parts 1 and 2 of the study; objective response rate (ORR) was a primary for part 2.
ORR was a secondary end point in part 1. In part 2, other secondary end points included duration of response, progression-free survival, disease control rate, overall survival, and pharmacokinetics.
References
- Zymeworks announces decision to discontinue clinical development of ZW171, a mesothelin-directed T cell engager. News release. Zymeworks. September 2, 2025. Accessed September 2, 2025. https://ir.zymeworks.com/news-releases/news-release-details/zymeworks-announces-decision-discontinue-clinical-development
- Afacan N, Piscitelli C, Zwierzchowski P, et al. ZW171, a T cell-engaging, bispecific antibody for the treatment of mesothelin-expressing solid tumors. Presented at: 2023 AACR Annual Meeting; April 14-19, 2023; Orlando, FL. Abstract 2942.
- A study of ZW171 in participants with advanced or metastatic mesothelin-expressing cancers. ClinicalTrials.gov. Updated July 22, 2025. Accessed September 2, 2025. https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06523803
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Phonenstien Flips Broken Samsung Into QWERTY Slider
The phone ecosystem these days is horribly boring compared to the innovation of a couple decades back. Your options include flat rectangles, and flat rectangles that fold in half and then break. [Marcin Plaza] wanted to think outside the slab, without reinventing the wheel. In an inspired bout of hacking, he flipped a broken Samsung zFlip 5 into a “new” phone.
There’s really nothing new in it; the guts all come from the donor phone. That screen? It’s the front screen that was on the top half of the zFlip, as you might have guessed from the cameras. Normally that screen is only used for notifications, but with the Samsung’s fancy folding OLED dead as Disco that needed to change. Luckily for [Marcin] Samsung has an app called Good Lock that already takes care of that. A little digging about in the menus is all it takes to get a launcher and apps on the small screen.
Because this is a modern phone, the whole thing is glued together, but that’s not important since [Marcin] is only keeping the screen and internals from the Samsung. The new case with its chunky four-bar linkage is a custom design fabbed out in CNC’d aluminum. (After a number of 3D Printed prototypes, of course. Rapid prototyping FTW!)
The bottom half of the slider contains a Blackberry Q10 keyboard, along with a battery and Magsafe connector. The Q10 keyboard is connected to a custom flex PCB with an Arduino Micro Pro that is moonlighting as a Human Input Device. Sure, that means the phone’s USB port is used by the keyboard, but this unit has wireless charging,so that’s not a great sacrifice. We particularly like the use of magnets to create a satisfying “snap” when the slider opens and closes.
Unfortunately, as much as we might love this concept, [Marcin] doesn’t feel the design is solid enough to share the files. While that’s disappointing, we can certainly relate to his desire to change it up in an era of endless flat rectangles. This project is a lot more work than just turning a broken phone into a server, but it also seems like a lot more fun.
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Introducing: The Business of Watches, A Brand New Podcast Series Launching Tomorrow
Get your favorite podcast app at the ready and your AirPods charged up, as we’ve got a fresh podcast launching tomorrow! It’s called The Business of Watches, and it’s hosted by our own Andy Hoffman and features long-format conversations with notable authors, CEOs, industry insiders, and fellow journalists, all about the business behind your favorite watches and watch brands.
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Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Evans Come Together for TIFF Movie Sacrfice
“Just to be clear,” says director Romain Gavras when discussing his new movie Sacrifice. “We didn’t actually throw anyone in a volcano.”
A disclosure like this may seem unnecessary, but for a film that was partially shot on location on the rim of a semi-active volcano, it is not entirely needless.
For Sacrifice, which is set to debut at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 6, Gavras and producers traversed treacherous terrain — from mines in Northern Greece to the Cannes film market — to make an independent feature that really doesn’t look like one.
In Sacrifice, Gavras dissects myth-making in its many forms. The movie follows actor Mike Tyler (Chris Evans), who is attempting a comeback after a personal crisis and subsequent soul-searching. For his first public appearance, he attends a black-tie environmental charity gala thrown by a billionaire entrepreneur (Vincent Cassel). But it gets interrupted by a violent radical group led by Joan (Anya Taylor-Joy) that is searching for individuals to fulfill a volcano-inclusive prophecy.
Gavras made the jump to feature filmmaking after a successful career directing music videos for the likes of M.I.A. and Jay-Z. In 2022, he released the French-language action-drama Athena with Netflix, after which he wanted to tackle his English-language debut. For this, he enlisted Will Arbery, a writer from one percent-skewering HBO sensation Succession.
Sacrifice captures the tenor of these high-end charity events that are attended by the famous and ultra-wealthy, and have a tendency to land somewhere between tone-deaf to hopelessly self-congratulatory.
“Having been in those kinds of ceremonies, the cheeky side of my brain wonders what would happen if people arrived with guns and started to create mayhem,” says Gavras, who says he normally avoids these kinds of social commitments. “I try not to go because they make you feel uncomfortable. Because we were researching the film, I went to some, and there is stuff you can’t even put in the movie because it was too much.”
What does end up in the film is a popstar (played by Charli xcx) calling herself “mother nature” singing about the ills of the planet, as strobe lights flash, electro-pop plays and back-up dancers twerk onstage.
Gavras and Arbery delivered the script at the top of 2024 to producers Robert Walak and Jacob Perlin of Iconoclast. The director flew out to Los Angeles in April to meet with potential cast, landing his stars Evans and Taylor-Joy in less than a week.
“What I love about him is that he’s the perfect American movie star,” says the director of his leading man. With Mike Tyler, Evans gets to play a bizarro-world version of himself. In real life, Evans has successfully landed the dismount after years playing Marvel’s Captain America, not getting swallowed up by his own celebrity or the role that made him famous, instead now opting for projects with filmmakers like Celine Song (The Materialists). (Though he occasionally returns to Marvel, as well.)
Onscreen, Evans’s Mike Tyler instead takes a more self-destructive route — at times, equal parts hilarious and harrowing — preoccupied by his public image and being perceived as a righteous do-gooder.
Says Gavras of Evans taking on the role, “This is very, very risky, and that’s the beauty of it.”
For her part, after meeting with Gavras, Taylor-Joy “the next day, texted him a picture of an emoji of a volcano and someone falling into it,” remembers Walak. “We thought, ‘I think that means that she’s in.’”
Weeks after the cast locked, the movie, which was boarded by Mid March Media and Film4, was presented to buyers at the 2024 Cannes film market. While on the Croisette, the producers got an alert about volcanoes erupting in Iceland. In between meetings with potential partners, the team sent a drone to capture the activity for what would become nature-documentary worthy insert shots used in the movie.
But Iceland, which is known for its high volcanic activity and has hosted productions like Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, would not work for their shoot. Gavras wanted to film in order, which meant that by the time the 50-day production wound its way to the volcano sequences, it would be wintertime in the country. Instead, filmmakers found their volcano near Santorini. For the filmmaker, who is half Greek, Greece felt like the right place for his mythology-centric story.
Even outside of the volcano, from a massive mine and caves to military helicopters, Sacrifice is filled with the kind of set pieces and locations you wouldn’t expect in an independently financed feature. Says Gavras, “I’m terrible with VFX and stuff like that, so I always shoot practically.”
Says Perlin, “Anyone else would be, ‘Can we do this? Can you execute it?’ And I think that’s where Romain shines.” Walak notes that should they have taken the studio route with the film, but that would have changed the outcomes, saying, “We always felt that this would most likely be an indie feature to give Romain that freedom.”
For his part, Gavras adds, “I have a lot more gray hair now.”
To build the film’s charity event, the team shot in a marble quarry in the city of Volakas in Northern Greece. 400 extras were brought in to fill out the space, with Charli xcx, in the middle of prep for a globe-spanning Brat arena tour, flying in for two days for her pitch-perfect scene.
When it did finally come time to film on the rim of the volcano, a question emerged about how to physically get there. The answer: donkeys.
“Robert and I would look through the budget and be like, ‘That’s a lot for donkeys!’” says Perlin. Walak adds, “There were some definitely irate emails about donkeys.”
No vehicles are allowed on the volcanic island, which meant Evans, Taylor-Joy and the rest of the cast and crew had an hour-plus hike up the shooting location, while donkeys carried equipment uphill. The group would arrive already tired, with smoke and wind whipping through the setup. But Gavras notes that the film’s performances would not be the same if they were captured in the comfort of a soundstage. He says, “It puts the whole team and the whole cast in an energy where we know that we are making a film that is going to be difficult but will be super satisfying.”
Sacrifice is looking for distribution at TIFF, with CAA Media Finance and Rocket Science handling sales. Outside of the satire, high concept, and higher production value, the director notes that the film, at its core, is about people who are trying to figure out their place in the world and, just maybe, along the way, make it a better one.
“We live in a world that’s fucking crazy. You turn on the news, you turn on the internet, and everything is mad,” says Gavras. “I’m surrounded in a world that I don’t really get, I don’t completely understand. To make a film is the attempt to not give answers, but at least to question it.”
As for what’s next, after his experience on Sacrifice, the director says, “I’m thinking of maybe making a nice story in a small apartment.”
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Astronomers discover a ‘forbidden’ pulsar fleeing a supernova in a seemingly empty region of the Milky Way
Astronomers have discovered an extraordinary celestial system containing a runaway pulsar fleeing the scene of a massive stellar supernova explosion. What makes this system even more spectacular is the fact that it should be “forbidden” in the empty region of the Milky Way in which it was found.
The system, given the name “Calvera” after the villain in the 1960 Western “The Magnificent Seven,” exists around 6,500 light-years above the densely populated plane of the Milky Way. In this region, stellar populations are sparse, and stars with the necessary mass needed to go supernova and to birth a neutron star at the heart of a pulsar should be vanishingly rare.
That means that the discovery of Calvera, given its name because it exists at the fringes and operates outside the norm like its namesake antagonist, could change our view of massive star formation as well as our picture of the outer region of the Milky Way.
“Massive stars — that is, at least eight times more massive than the sun — form almost exclusively in the galactic plane, where the gas density is highest and favors star birth,” team leader Emanuele Greco of the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) said in a statement. “Finding their remnants at such distances from the plane is extremely rare. Our analysis has allowed us to more precisely estimate the distance, age, and even the characteristics of the possible progenitor star that gave rise to both the Calvera pulsar and its supernova remnant.”
The explosive story of Calvera
Astronomers first became fascinated with Calvera in 2022 when it was spotted by the Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) radio telescope, a network of antennas across 8 European countries. Calvera was detected as an extended structure with an almost perfectly circular shape.
This led to it being identified as the wreckage of a supernova, which was curious because these explosive stellar death throes usually occur within the thick disk of stars across the central plane of our galaxy.
Pulsars are neutron stars, stellar remnants created when massive stars collapse at the end of their lives. They can spin as fast as 700 times per second. Astronomers had already identified a pulsar (also called Calvera) in this region thanks to its intense X-ray emission.
Looking at the trajectory of this pulsar, astronomers determined that it appears to be racing away from the center of the supernova explosion. That suggests the supernova wreckage in the form of an expanding shell of gas and dust, and the runaway pulsar are connected, the result of the explosive death of a massive star thousands of years ago.
The strange system known as Calvera as seen in X-rays. (Image credit: Emanuele Greco, ricercatore INAF presso la sede di Palermo.) The team behind this research wanted to get a better picture of the cosmic history of the Calvera system, so they examined X-ray data regarding the system collected by the European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft XMM-Newton. The researchers combined this with data from other telescopes across the electromagnetic spectrum.
The characteristics of the supernova’s hot gas, combined with the motion of the pulsar, allowed the team to determine the age of the system and its distance more precisely. This revealed that the supernova explosion erupted between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago and that Calvera is between 13,000 and 16,500 light-years away.
This further solidified the connection between the supernova wreckage and the runaway pulsar.
The research is even more interesting because of how different this region of the Milky Way is from the galactic plane, where supernovas usually rage. This is interesting because it is thought that the gamma-ray emissions of supernovas are caused by a high density of particles, particularly protons. However, this investigation of Calvera shows that the mechanism that launches gamma-rays from supernovas can also occur in low-density conditions such as those found at the outskirts of the Milky Way.
“Thanks to space telescopes like XMM-Newton and Fermi/LAT, and ground-based instruments like the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo, we can analyze supernova remnants and pulsars in different bands of the electromagnetic spectrum,” Greco said. “In the case of Calvera, we have shown that even in rarefied environments, plasma emission at millions of degrees can occur if the shock wave from the explosion encounters local clumps. These clumps, in turn, reveal something about the evolutionary history of the star that exploded.”
“Our study shows that even the quietest and seemingly empty regions of the galaxy can harbor extreme processes,” Greco concluded. “Not only have we precisely constrained the physical properties of the Calvera system, but we have also demonstrated that, locally, it is possible to find densities sufficient to generate X-ray and gamma-ray emissions even very far from the galactic plane.
“This discovery invites us to look with new eyes at the peripheries of the Milky Way.”
The team’s research was published on Friday (Aug. 29) in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
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Want a folding iPhone? Apple is making a bigger bet than ever that you will next year
Apple’s iPhone 16 Pro Max next to Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 7.
Jason Hiner/ZDNET
Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.
ZDNET’s key takeaways
- The reliable supply chain reporter Ming-Chi Kuo says Apple just boosted its folding iPhone plans.
- Apple will reportedly boost 2026 manufacturing to 8-10 million and 2027 to 20-25 million.
- That is far beyond the 2.4 million units Samsung plans to sell for its recent Fold 7 device.
Supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo issued a new report on Tuesday that Apple just issued a 20% boost in the number of foldable iPhones it plans to manufacture in 2026 and a 40% boost in the number it will make for 2027.
Apple has long been expected to launch a foldable iPhone since the company holds over 30 patents in folding phones.
Insights by GreyB Kuo’s report stated, “Apple recently revised its shipment forecasts for the foldable iPhone upward to 8-10 million units in 2026 and 20-25 million in 2027 (vs. previous estimate of 6-8 million and 10-15 million, respectively).”
In other words, Apple just got a lot more bullish about the number of folding iPhones it expects to sell in the coming years. Apple would likely not announce its folding iPhone until its fall 2026 iPhone event, a year from now.
Also: The best foldable phones of 2025: Expert tested and reviewed
By comparison, Samsung is planning to ship 2.4 million of its Samsung Fold 7 phone (a 9% increase over last year’s model), according to Korean source, The Elec. The Fold 7 is the model that is potentially the most like the one Apple is reportedly preparing to launch — an 8-inch foldable phone with a cover screen that is close to the size of a standard smartphone.
If Apple is planning to more than triple the number of units of the Fold 7 that Samsung is planning to sell, then that would indicate that the company has tremendous confidence in the prototypes it’s currently making ahead of a launch in 2026. After all, Samsung has been refining the foldable phone concept for years. And recently, Chinese manufacturers have also been producing cutting-edge foldables such as the Honor Magic V5 and the Oppo Find N5.
“I think this comes from a place of pent-up demand for an iOS foldable,” said Anshel Sag, Principal Analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. “But I would also say it likely requires more of a book foldable to hit those numbers.”
Samsung’s Fold 7 on top of the iPhone 16 Pro Max and the Galaxy S24 Ultra.
Jason Hiner/ZDNET
I recently started testing the Samsung Fold 7, and I’m not surprised that Apple is getting bullish. I’ve never loved folding phones, but the Fold 7 is quickly becoming one of my favorite phones I’ve ever tested. When folded, it’s roughly the same size as the iPhone 16 Pro Max, so it looks and feels like using a normal phone.
Also: I spent a week in New York City with the Samsung Z Fold 7 – and it spoiled me the entire time
But when you unfold it, it becomes more like using an iPad Mini, except that the fold itself and the camera configuration give you a lot more options for doing things you could never do on a regular tablet — such as using it like a mini laptop, taking a selfie with the back cameras while previewing with the cover screen, and even using the cover screen like a teleprompter while recording a video with the back cameras.
I’ll mention a lot more Fold 7 tricks in an upcoming ZDNET article, but the bottom line is that it gives us a preview of all the new capabilities Apple could bring to the iPhone by launching a folding version.
ZDNET reached out to Apple for comment and will update this article as we learn more.
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Apple is pointing toward 8M folding iPhones in 2026 – tripling Samsung’s Fold 7
Apple’s iPhone 16 Pro Max next to Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 7.
Jason Hiner/ZDNET
Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.
ZDNET’s key takeaways
- The reliable supply chain reporter Ming-Chi Kuo says Apple just boosted its folding iPhone plans.
- Apple will reportedly boost 2026 manufacturing to 8-10 million and 2027 to 20-25 million.
- That is far beyond the 2.4 million units Samsung plans to sell for its recent Fold 7 device.
Supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo issued a new report on Tuesday that Apple just issued a 20% boost in the number of foldable iPhones it plans to manufacture in 2026 and a 40% boost in the number it will make for 2027.
Apple has long been expected to launch a foldable iPhone since the company holds over 30 patents in folding phones.
Insights by GreyB Kuo’s report stated, “Apple recently revised its shipment forecasts for the foldable iPhone upward to 8-10 million units in 2026 and 20-25 million in 2027 (vs. previous estimate of 6-8 million and 10-15 million, respectively).”
In other words, Apple just got a lot more bullish about the number of folding iPhones it expects to sell in the coming years. Apple would likely not announce its folding iPhone until its fall 2026 iPhone event, a year from now.
Also: The best foldable phones of 2025: Expert tested and reviewed
By comparison, Samsung is planning to ship 2.4 million of its Samsung Fold 7 phone (a 9% increase over last year’s model), according to Korean source, The Elec. The Fold 7 is the model that is potentially the most like the one Apple is reportedly preparing to launch — an 8-inch foldable phone with a cover screen that is close to the size of a standard smartphone.
If Apple is planning to more than triple the number of units of the Fold 7 that Samsung is planning to sell, then that would indicate that the company has tremendous confidence in the prototypes it’s currently making ahead of a launch in 2026. After all, Samsung has been refining the foldable phone concept for years. And recently, Chinese manufacturers have also been producing cutting-edge foldables such as the Honor Magic V5 and the Oppo Find N5.
“I think this comes from a place of pent-up demand for an iOS foldable,” said Anshel Sag, Principal Analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. “But I would also say it likely requires more of a book foldable to hit those numbers.”
Samsung’s Fold 7 on top of the iPhone 16 Pro Max and the Galaxy S24 Ultra.
Jason Hiner/ZDNET
I recently started testing the Samsung Fold 7, and I’m not surprised that Apple is getting bullish. I’ve never loved folding phones, but the Fold 7 is quickly becoming one of my favorite phones I’ve ever tested. When folded, it’s roughly the same size as the iPhone 16 Pro Max, so it looks and feels like using a normal phone.
Also: I spent a week in New York City with the Samsung Z Fold 7 – and it spoiled me the entire time
But when you unfold it, it becomes more like using an iPad Mini, except that the fold itself and the camera configuration give you a lot more options for doing things you could never do on a regular tablet — such as using it like a mini laptop, taking a selfie with the back cameras while previewing with the cover screen, and even using the cover screen like a teleprompter while recording a video with the back cameras.
I’ll mention a lot more Fold 7 tricks in an upcoming ZDNET article, but the bottom line is that it gives us a preview of all the new capabilities Apple could bring to the iPhone by launching a folding version.
ZDNET reached out to Apple for comment and will update this article as we learn more.
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Kuo: Apple just increased its folding iPhone plans for 2026 – will triple Samsung’s Fold 7
Apple’s iPhone 16 Pro Max next to Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 7.
Jason Hiner/ZDNET
Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.
ZDNET’s key takeaways
- The reliable supply chain reporter Ming-Chi Kuo says Apple just boosted its folding iPhone plans.
- Apple will reportedly boost 2026 manufacturing to 8-10 million and 2027 to 20-25 million.
- That is far beyond the 2.4 million units Samsung plans to sell for its recent Fold 7 device.
Supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo issued a new report on Tuesday that Apple just issued a 20% boost in the number of foldable iPhones it plans to manufacture in 2026 and a 40% boost in the number it will make for 2027.
Apple has long been expected to launch a foldable iPhone since the company holds over 30 patents in folding phones.
Insights by GreyB Kuo’s report stated, “Apple recently revised its shipment forecasts for the foldable iPhone upward to 8-10 million units in 2026 and 20-25 million in 2027 (vs. previous estimate of 6-8 million and 10-15 million, respectively).”
In other words, Apple just got a lot more bullish about the number of folding iPhones it expects to sell in the coming years. Apple would likely not announce its folding iPhone until its fall 2026 iPhone event, a year from now.
By comparison, Samsung is planning to ship 2.4 million of its Samsung Fold 7 phone (a 9% increase over last year’s model), according to Korean source, The Elec. The Fold 7 is the model that is potentially the most like the one Apple is reportedly preparing to launch — an 8-inch foldable phone with a cover screen that is close to the size of a standard smartphone.
If Apple is planning to more-than-triple the number of units of the Fold 7 that Samsung is planning to sell, then that would indicate that the company has tremendous confidence in the prototypes it’s currently making ahead of a launch in 2026. After all, Samsung has been refining the foldable phone concept for years. And recently, Chinese manufacturers have also been producing cutting edge foldables such as the Honor Magic V5 and the Oppo Find N5.
Samsung’s Fold 7 on top of the iPhone 16 Pro Max and the Galaxy S24 Ultra.
Jason Hiner/ZDNET
I recently started testing the Samsung Fold 7 and I’m not surprised that Apple is getting bullish. I’ve never loved folding phones, but the Fold 7 is quickly becoming one of my favorite phones I’ve ever tested. It’s now roughly the same size as the iPhone 16 Pro Max when folded, so it looks and feels like using a normal phone.
But when you unfold it, it becomes more like using an iPad Mini, except that the fold itself and the camera configuration give you a lot more options for doing things you could never do on a regular tablet — such as using it like a mini laptop, taking a selfie with the back cameras while previewing with the cover screen, and even using the cover screen like a teleprompter while taking a video with the back cameras. There are a lot more Fold 7 tricks I’ll mention in an upcoming ZDNET article, but the bottom line is that it gives us a preview of all the new capabilities Apple could bring to the iPhone by launching a folding version.
ZDNET reached out to Apple for comment and will update this article as we learn more.
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