Galaxy Z TriFold US release is proof enough that Samsung leads and Apple follows

A monumental shift is happening in the smartphone market for the United States on January 30, 2026. That is when Samsung's first tri-fold phone hits the market. Not only is this the first device of its kind that Samsung has commercially released, it also happens to be the only tri-fold phone being sold in the United States.

The United States is Apple's backyard. This is where the company enjoys unprecedented brand loyalty, where its most ardent of supporters exist. Those supporters also have expectations. They feel that it should be Apple that leads the way for the industry to follow. The company has always positioned itself as being on the bleeding edge of technology and bringing about major industry shifts that others haven't even thought of.

That hasn't been the case for the better part of the last decade, though, at least for smartphones. Apple has truly missed the boat on foldable phones. Samsung became the first to test the waters with a foldable device way back in 2019. Since then, the company's Galaxy Z Fold and Z Flip lineups have matured.

Samsung now brings out new foldable phones every year that are better than ever before without breaking a sweat. Last year's Galaxy Z Fold 7 was a monumental upgrade even by Samsung's standards while Apple is nowhere to be found in this segment.

So while Apple fans await the rumored launch of the first iPhone Fold at some point later this year, Samsung is releasing the Galaxy Z TriFold in the United States on January 30. It is meant as a statement. That Samsung is so far ahead of Apple in this segment that it doesn't matter much if a foldable iPhone is released after all this time. Samsung is already on the next frontier and is going to dominate it just as it has dominated foldable phones until now.

There had been longstanding criticism against Samsung that the company follows whatever Apple innovates. Whatever you may feel about the truth behind those claims, what's clear is that it certainly hasn't been that way for many years now.

Samsung led the industry's shift to large-screen devices. It led the adoption of 5G at scale for mobile devices. It challenged what a smartphone could be with the very first Galaxy Fold all those years ago. Samsung then reimagined legacy flip phones as a bona fide foldable form factor with the Galaxy Z Flip.

There was a time when we had 10-inch tablets and it felt impossible that such large displays could ever be found on a smartphone. People were convinced that they need to carry a phone and a tablet for work. The Galaxy Z TriFold now puts a tablet-sized display in your pocket with its 10-inch panel.

Samsung hasn't just developed a new device, it has created a new interaction paradigm. This device is the result of Samsung's breakthroughs in hinge engineering, flexible OLED durability, battery segmentation, thermal management, and more. It's far from launching the same phone every single year with minor refinements as Apple has been doing for several generations of iPhones.

It appears that innovation at Apple is now incremental and completely risk-free. The focus is more on polish than on possibility while Samsung is doing both. True innovation isn't about perfection on day one, it's about wading into uncharted territory and conquering it.

The difference between the two is as clear as day. It seems folks at Apple have accepted the definition of what a phone is. In contrast, Samsung is fundamentally rethinking what a phone can physically be. So while Apple spends its years refining the familiar, Samsung is inventing the unfamiliar.