Author: Dima Mikhailov. Photo: illustrative

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Work on the foldable iPhone, which is expected to be unveiled today, has been underway for at least eight years, writes the Financial Times. A former Apple engineer told the publication that the company was not rushing to release a smartphone in that form factor, because it was waiting for foldable phone technologies to become sufficiently reliable and not too expensive.

"There are many reasons why Apple wanted to wait before entering this particular product category," said former Apple display engineer Radu Rait. "The design of the device that Apple will likely release was technically possible more than ten years ago. However, at that time, producing such a screen would have cost thousands of dollars. Another aspect is commercial: is the market large enough? At that time, it wasn't."

Recent advances have increased the durability of foldable screens, while reducing the visibility of the crease and lowering manufacturing costs, add the Financial Times.

Samsung faced technical problems at the early stages of releasing foldable smartphones,