It feels like foldable phones are finally taking off — maybe not in terms of pure sales figures given the high cost of entry, but with the Google Pixel Fold and the upcoming OnePlus Open, Android’s big guns are keen to enter the market.
But the word “Android” is key in that sentence. So far, there’s been no official word that Apple is interested in joining the foldable race, despite it probably holding the key to mainstream adoption.
“The moment that Apple decided to launch 5G smartphones, 5G shipments went through the roof,” IDC’s Francisco Jeronimo told The Standard last October. He predicts Apple’s theoretical arrival in the foldable space would cause a similar spike in interest.
So what prospect is there of Apple making a foldable iPhone, and when would it be? Here’s what we know at the moment.
Why would Apple make a folding iPhone?
So far, foldables have come in two varieties, both of which provide the same benefit: fitting more screen in less space.
For the flip phone variety (the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 or the Moto Razr Ultra) it’s about making a regular-sized phone fold in half, for the larger foldable (the Galaxy Z Fold 4 or Pixel Fold) it’s about combining a phone with a tablet for a 2-in-1 device.
Is Apple making a folding iPhone?
There are signs to suggest that Apple is, at the very least, considering the idea of entering the foldables race with a number of publicly available patents to look at, as well as rumours of internal testing taking place.
In 2020, the company filed a patent for foldable displays designed with durability in mind, and as recently as last year a patent was filed for flexible displays. There’s even one that talks about a foldable that can close itself when dropped to prevent serious damage.
Of course, companies patent things all the time, and that doesn’t mean the innovation will ever appear in a commercially available product. Indeed, in 2022 alone, Apple filed nearly 6,000.
So then we’re looking at less reliable rumours, and on that score the usual tipsters believe that Apple is favouring the flip-phone style for its first iPhone, rather than making an iPhone/iPad 2-in-1. You can imagine what this would look like from the concept at the top of the page, from LetsGoDigital.
Could it be a rolling iPhone?
As well as foldables, there’s another kind of expandable screen that hasn’t had commercial availability to date: rollable phones.
That’s where the screen partially rolls up like a scroll which can be expanded or tucked away when not in use. They’re largely in the concept stage at the moment, like the Oppo X 2021.
Could that be Apple’s route instead of a foldable? It’s possible, if patents equal intent.
A new patent from the company published just this week describes “electronic devices with rollable displays” that “may be moved between an unrolled state in which the display is planar and a rolled state in which a rollable portion of the display is rolled up for storage”.
But again, filing a patent isn’t the same thing as actually planning to act on it. So keep this in the maybe column — especially given nobody else has made a rolling phone commercially available yet, and factoring in Apple’s tendency to arrive on the scene only once technology is suitably mature.
Could Apple make a folding iPad instead?
One suggestion is that Apple could test the water with a foldable iPad first.
Indeed, that’s a theory advanced by engineers at Apple’s foldable rival Samsung, with some reportedly expecting a folding iPad to arrive as soon as next year. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo also believes this is possible.
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— 郭明錤 (Ming-Chi Kuo) (@mingchikuo) January 30, 2023
Thus, I'm taking a cautious approach to iPad shipments for 2023, predicting a YoY decline of 10-15%. Nevertheless, I'm positive about the foldable iPad in 2024 and expect this new model will boost shipments and improve the product mix.
Choosing a folding iPad over an iPhone may sound odd at first, but it actually makes a whole lot of sense.
Firstly, there aren’t that many foldable tablets out there, and while Apple ‘only’ has around 28 per cent of the smartphone market worldwide, it owns more than half the corresponding tablet one.
Secondly, tablets are bulkier and harder to pocket than phones. If an iPad could be folded in half, it would be a whole lot more portable — an iPad mini (7.7 x 5.3 x 0.3-inches) isn’t that much larger than the open Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 (6.1 x 5.1 x 0.21-inches), after all.
Alternatively, it could give Apple licence to build larger iPad screens without having to worry about how people would carry them. Currently, Apple maxes out at 12.9-inches with the iPad Pro — could this open the door to 15-inches or more?
When will Apple make its first foldable?
Everyone seems to agree that a foldable or rollable iPhone isn’t something that we’ll see this year. Even the reports of a folding iPad spoke of 2024 back in 2022, and little has been heard since.
I expected Apple to launch a foldable iPhone as soon as 2024 in my reports last year, but now it's clear this prediction needs to be revised. I predict Apple may launch its first foldable product in 2025 at the earliest, which may be a foldable iPad or a hybrid of iPad & iPhone. https://t.co/HGIDPFvdar
— 郭明錤 (Ming-Chi Kuo) (@mingchikuo) April 1, 2022
As for a folding iPhone, Ming-Chi Kuo revised his prediction from 2024 to “2025 at the earliest”. It wouldn’t be surprising if these estimates slipped further as the date looms large.
How much will an Apple foldable cost?
This is impossible to know for sure, and depends on a number of factors, including the form factor Apple ultimately decides upon, and the price of consumer electronics by the time it’s ready for sale.
But one thing that seems certain is that it won’t be cheap. Not only is Apple known for pricing its products higher than rivals, but there’s already a foldable premium for smartphone shoppers today. Foldable flip phones go between £800 and £1,200, while 2-in-1 tablet foldables start at £1,400 and rise to £1,869.
With the expected Apple premium, it’s hard to imagine a hypothetical iPhone Flip arriving for less than £1,200, or an iPhone Fold starting at under £1,900.
