Samsung has finally made it official that the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and the Galaxy Z Flip 5 will be unveiled at an Unpacked event in its home country next month. For me, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 is the more interesting device as the Fold lineup just doesn’t do it for me thanks to limitations like a narrow cover screen and underwhelming cameras despite the insane price you have to pay for it.
The most exciting upgrade the Galaxy Z Flip 5 is expected to bring is a larger cover screen. Well, that and dust resistance, if a recent rumor is to be believed. But the bigger cover screen will be the more conspicuous upgrade that could make day-to-day usage more convenient.
With more real estate on the cover screen, the Z Flip 5’s durability will also be positively affected as you won’t need to unfold it as often as you would unfold any of the existing Galaxy Z Flip smartphones. But here’s the thing: while the larger cover screen will be a welcome upgrade, what will make or break its usefulness is whether or not Samsung will allow apps to run on the cover screen just as they would run on a regular phone or the Flip 5’s main display.
There has been at least one rumor suggesting that will be possible, at least for Samsung’s first-party apps. But for the cover screen to really be useful, I would want support for third-party apps as well. Not every app, but support for apps such as WhatsApp and other messaging services that people often use will be nice to see.
It’s likely that Samsung will not have any control over how apps run on the cover screen and it will be up to third-party developers to add Z Flip 5 cover screen support to their apps. Unfortunately, Samsung’s foldables (and foldables in general) don’t really do a lot of busisness so we will have to wait and see if developers will actually care.
I’m just going to keep my expectations to a minimum until the Galaxy Z Flip 5 is officially unveiled. We’re sure Samsung will come up with some party tricks to make the folder-shaped cover display more fun to use, but it remains to be seen just how functional and feature-rich it will turn out to be.
