One perk of being a technology analyst is getting samples of the latest devices to evaluate. A few weeks ago, Samsung sent me its latest premium foldable smartphone, the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra.
After putting it through its paces for several weeks, something occurred to me: given I’ve been a staunch iPhone user for two decades, the learning curve on Android was more challenging than I cared to admit.
After all, when you spend enough time around longtime smartphone users, you’ll hear the same responses: “I just can’t use Android,” or “I could never switch to an iPhone.” It’s easy to assume this stems from the commonly held belief that some people are more “left-brained” — analytical and structured — while others are more “right-brained” — visual and intuitive.
Modern neuroscience doesn’t really support that theory. While the brain does have specialized functions in its two hemispheres, research has not found evidence that people can be broadly categorized as left-brain or right-brain personalities. A University of Utah brain imaging study of more than 1,000 participants found no evidence that people prefer one hemisphere over the other, as some popular psychology suggests.
There is no scientific basis for saying some brains are wired for iOS and others for Android. What is going on arguably has more to do with years of learned behavior than brain dominance.
iOS and Android Have Trained Us for 20 Years
The iPhone came out in 2007, and commercial Android phones in 2008, so millions of consumers have had close to 20 years to become accustomed to one platform.
That repetition matters because most longtime users don’t consciously think about how to return to the home screen, share a photo, switch applications, answer a notification, or change a setting. Their fingers just know what to do. This is procedural learning, where repeated behaviors become more automatic and require less conscious thought.
Research on technology adoption and switching emphasizes the significance of habits, switching costs, and inertia. Moving to another platform requires relearning familiar behaviors, making longtime users less willing to change.
This phenomenon also explains why an experienced iPhone user can pick up an Android phone and immediately find it confusing. The Android phone might perform the task perfectly well, but what the user often experiences is “It doesn’t work the way I expect it to work.”
This distinction is important because familiarity can easily be mistaken for superior usability.
Familiarity Eventually Feels Like Usability
iOS and Android have created their own interface languages over the last two decades. Users learn where controls are, what gestures mean, how notifications behave, and how applications talk to the operating system. Over time, those behaviors become almost invisible.
It’s like getting in a car where the accelerator and brake pedals are swapped. In theory, the new arrangement could work just as well, but your immediate reaction would be that the car is terribly designed because your existing mental model no longer applies.
That’s essentially what happens when a longtime smartphone user changes operating systems. A 15-year iPhone user will find iOS intuitive, but that’s because they’ve been learning iOS all along. Common tasks on Android suddenly become things they have to think about.
The same goes for longtime Android users switching to iOS. This lack of familiarity leads to discussions about which operating system is “easier” and can obscure the distinction between inherent and learned usability, because people naturally judge an interface against the one they know.
Ecosystems Make Switching Harder
Habit plays a role, but smartphones have also become the nexus of much larger technology ecosystems. An iPhone user could also have a Mac, Apple Watch, AirPods, iPad, and Apple TV while relying heavily on iCloud, Photos, Messages, FaceTime, and purchased apps. So changing from iOS can affect more than just the phone.
Android users face similar ecosystem effects through Google services, Samsung devices, Windows PCs, smart-home products, accessories, and applications.
Research on smartphone behavior has found that switching costs and ecosystem effects are important in determining loyalty. Moreover, heads of households often become “shadow” CIOs who prefer family members to use either iOS- or Android-based smartphones for easier tech support.
The more devices, data, and workflows users hook into an ecosystem, the harder it is to leave. That’s why the question “Which phone is better?” is increasingly missing the point, because the more relevant question might be, “Which technology ecosystem would I rather live in?”
Nobody Likes Becoming a Beginner Again
There is also a psychological issue that rarely gets enough attention: people don’t like to lose competence. A longtime iPhone user might know iOS like the back of their hand, but give that person an Android phone and suddenly they’re a novice.
Settings are harder to find, gestures feel weird, notifications behave differently, and menus pop up in seemingly odd places. Individually, none of those issues are catastrophic, but dozens of tiny moments of friction can quickly create the impression that the competing operating system is complicated or poorly designed.
Familiar is easy, different is difficult, and difficult starts feeling inferior. Someone’s personal technology identity can be built around their smartphone preference because the operating system is tied to years of habits, purchases, and social interactions.
Foldables Could Reset User Expectations
That’s why Apple’s expected move into foldable smartphones could be significant. The real opportunity isn’t simply to make a foldable iPhone, but to create experiences a typical candy-bar smartphone cannot easily match.
Today’s traditional smartphone is still largely designed around viewing and interacting with one app at a time. Open a book-style foldable and the assumptions change; users suddenly have enough display area to support multiple activities simultaneously.
An Apple foldable could let users put email next to a document, watch video alongside related content, take notes during a FaceTime call, or edit content elsewhere on the screen while an AI assistant generates it. The bottom half of the phone could turn into a keyboard, gaming controller, editing surface, or contextual command panel, while the top display handles content.
These aren’t just bigger versions of existing smartphone experiences. They could become new computing models that blur the lines between phone, tablet, and light PC.
Apple’s Software Edge
Apple has decades of experience with interfaces on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, and a foldable device gives the company the opportunity to selectively bring some tablet and desktop concepts into the smartphone without turning the device into a miniature Mac. Ultimately, that might be more important than the hardware itself.
Samsung has already proven foldables can run multiple apps simultaneously, support adaptable windows, and enable advanced multitasking. Apple’s challenge will be to make those capabilities feel simple enough for mainstream consumers rather than like power-user features.
If Apple nails it, the foldable could be a new space between the iPhone and the iPad, not just another expensive smartphone.
Foldables Might Make Switching Easier
Another interesting possibility is that a truly new form factor makes everyone a beginner for a while. If both Samsung and Apple ask consumers to learn how applications behave when a smartphone unfolds into a small tablet, many of the existing assumptions about operating systems will become less relevant.
Samsung might argue that Android’s flexibility and history with multitasking make it an obvious choice for foldables, while Apple might counter that its tight integration between hardware and software makes complex new interactions easier to understand.
In either case, the competitive conversation shifts as users begin to judge the quality of the foldable experience rather than rely on years of familiarity with iOS or Android.
That leaves a rare opening for both companies. New hardware can reset user expectations in ways a conventional annual smartphone upgrade can’t.
The Real Barrier Is Learned Behavior
With nearly 20 years of iOS and Android, the difficulty of switching has little to do with whether consumers are supposedly left-brained or right-brained. It’s more about muscle memory, familiarity, ecosystem investment, and the psychological comfort of knowing exactly how your technology works.
Apple and Google have done more than just create competing operating systems. They have taught billions of people how to use smartphones in two slightly different OS languages, so moving platforms is less like purchasing another device and more like moving to a country where everyone speaks a dialect you almost understand.
That long-established familiarity could be disrupted by foldables and new interactions that neither group of users has mastered yet.
If Apple just makes an iPhone that folds, it will have joined an existing product category. If it creates compelling experiences that are impossible or impractical on today’s candy-bar smartphones, however, it could do something much more important.
An Apple foldable could change consumer expectations for how a smartphone should operate and, for the first time in nearly 20 years, give longtime iPhone and Android users a reason to adopt some new habits.
