GoKawiilApple’s fall launch event is just days away, meaning Samsung, Google and Motorola may have to share the foldable spotlight with a new rival. After years of rumors, mounting reports suggest this could finally be the year Apple launches its first foldable iPhone, which is rumored to be called the iPhone Ultra.
But there might be a wait between announcing the foldable and getting it into people’s hands. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, as reported by MacRumors, says Apple could unveil the foldable alongside the iPhone 18 lineup, but the company wait until later in the year to put it on sale, similar to the iPhone X launch in 2017. Apple sent out invites to an event on Sept. 9, where we expect the next iPhones to be unveiled — and likely the foldable as well.
That event will be a landmark for other reasons beyond the potential launch of a folding iPhone. It’s the first after outgoing CEO Tim Cook formally hands the keys to the Apple kingdom to its new head, John Ternus. To celebrate this occasion, CNET has been reliving fun and pivotal moments from our decades covering the company with our Apple a Day series.
A folding iPhone is expected to arrive at a starting price north of $2,000. The name that’s stuck in the rumor mill for years, the iPhone Fold, might even change before it hits store shelves. Leaks increasingly point to iPhone Ultra, a label that would elevate the device above the Pro lineup and signal a new tier of Apple hardware. Here’s everything the leaks, analyst reports and dummy unit images have revealed so far.
While the inside of the iPhone foldable will have a near tablet-sized 7.8-inch display, it may not have all the functionality of an iPad, Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman recently told Yahoo Tech. From what he’s heard, the Mac-like multitasking that Apple added to iPadOS won’t quite be what’s in the iPhone foldable. Instead, expect side-by-side app layouts that should still let users drag and drop things between them.
We’ve gotten far more design leaks suggesting how Apple’s foldable may look. Most leaks suggest that the iPhone Fold will be a book-style foldable that’s squat and wide, looking more like the original Pixel Fold or the new Galaxy Fold 8 than taller, thinner models, such as the Galaxy Z Fold 7 or the Pixel 10 Pro Fold.
The screen on the iPhone Fold is rumored to have little or no crease, according to a recent report by the Chinese publication UDN. Screen creases, especially on early foldable phones, have long annoyed consumers and critics, and they still remain, despite the seam getting less noticeable over the years. Even Samsung’s most advanced Galaxy Z TriFold has two screen creases, one for each of its hinges. It would be a major breakthrough if Apple were to find a way to fold a screen in half without leaving a crease.
Another report from leaker Fixed Focus Digital on Weibo suggests that Apple’s hinges could be made of liquid metal, an alloy possibly provided by Liquidmetal Technologies, with which Apple has had an exclusive contract since 2010. It’s been the topic of many rumors since then and the basis of several patent applications, but so far, no products other than the SIM ejector tool that once shipped with iPhone models.
Even days before its potential release, we’ve yet to hear any official word on a foldable iPhone from Apple.
Mock-ups of potential iPhone foldables, including a clamshell “iPhone Flip” on the left and a book-style foldable on the right, along with a flat iPhone for comparison on the bottom. Zain bin Awais/CNET
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