Apple is finally building a foldable phone
After years of deliberate absence, Apple is preparing to enter the foldable phone market — not merely to compete, but to redefine the category on its own terms. Expected to arrive in September 2026 alongside the iPhone 18 Pro lineup, the so-called iPhone Fold represents the company's answer to a question the industry has been asking for years: what does Apple's vision of a folding device actually look like? The answer, it seems, is a book-style form with a creaseless display, a price that signals luxury intent, and a launch timed to coincide with the company's 50th anniversary.
- Apple's long silence in the foldable market has given rivals like Samsung and Motorola years of dominance — and now the Cupertino company is preparing to respond with a device that targets the one flaw every competitor has failed to solve: the crease.
- The stakes are unusually high — this is not a quiet product refresh but a category debut in Apple's anniversary year, carrying the weight of expectation from investors, consumers, and a tech press that has waited years to see what Apple would do.
- Engineering choices reveal the tensions Apple had to navigate: Touch ID over Face ID to keep the device thin, a 5,500 mAh battery to sustain two screens, and a wider-than-usual book-style form that prioritizes compactness over mimicking existing foldables.
- At a starting price of $2,400 in the US — and considerably more in markets like India — Apple is positioning the iPhone Fold as a premium object, not a mass-market pivot, narrowing its audience even before launch.
- The September 2026 timeline suggests Apple has moved past prototype experimentation and is now in the final stretch of design decisions, with the A20 Pro chipset and up to 1TB of storage anchoring a device meant to feel unmistakably flagship.
Apple is preparing to enter the foldable phone market — a space it has watched Samsung, Motorola, Huawei, and others occupy for years. After testing multiple prototypes, including clamshell and book-style designs, the company appears to have settled on a horizontal book-fold form that is wider than most competitors yet leans toward compactness.
The display is where Apple's engineering ambitions are most visible. The inner screen measures 7.8 inches of OLED — and, notably, without the crease that has defined every foldable phone to date. The outer screen comes in at 5.5 inches. Both use punch-hole cameras, and both skip Face ID in favor of Touch ID embedded in the power button, a practical concession that keeps the device thinner.
Inside, the iPhone Fold will run on the A20 Pro chip — the same processor expected in the iPhone 18 Pro — paired with 12GB of RAM and storage options up to 1TB. Its 5,500 mAh battery is the largest Apple has ever placed in an iPhone, a necessity for a device powering two screens simultaneously.
Apple plans to unveil the device in September 2026 alongside the iPhone 18 Pro lineup. Pricing is expected to start at $2,400 in the United States, with Indian market prices climbing considerably higher than Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 7. Apple has confirmed nothing officially, but the timing carries its own symbolism: the company's 50th anniversary year, chosen as the moment to finally answer a market it once seemed content to ignore.
Apple is finally building a foldable phone. After years of watching Samsung, Motorola, Huawei, and Vivo dominate the category—and enduring their public jabs about the company's absence from the market—the Cupertino giant is preparing to enter the space with what insiders say will be a distinctly Apple approach: a device with no crease.
The company has been testing multiple prototypes, according to reports circulating among industry analysts. Some fold vertically, clamshell-style, mimicking Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip 7. Others open horizontally like a book, expanding into a larger screen similar to Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 7. But the version Apple appears to be moving toward is the book design—wider than competing foldables from Samsung and Google, with a form factor that leans toward compactness.
The display specs tell you where Apple's engineering priorities landed. The inner screen will measure 7.8 inches across, rendered in OLED, and crucially, without the visible crease that has plagued every foldable phone on the market until now. The outer display comes in at 5.5 inches. Both screens will use punch-hole cameras for selfies, and both will skip Face ID entirely. Instead, the device will rely on Touch ID embedded in the power button—a practical choice that keeps the phone thinner and avoids the complexity of fitting facial recognition into a foldable form.
Under the hood sits Apple's next-generation A20 Pro processor, the same chip expected to power the iPhone 18 Pro lineup. The foldable will ship with 12 gigabytes of RAM and storage options ranging from 256 gigabytes to a full terabyte. The battery is the largest Apple has ever put in an iPhone: 5,500 milliamp-hours. That's the kind of capacity you need when you're powering a device with two screens and a processor built for demanding tasks.
Apple plans to announce the iPhone Fold in September 2026, rolling it out alongside the iPhone 18 Pro models. The pricing, unsurprisingly, will be steep. In the United States, the device is expected to start at $2,400. In India, where import taxes and manufacturing considerations apply, the price will climb even higher—a significant premium over Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 7, which begins at roughly 175,000 rupees. Apple has not confirmed any of this, of course. But the timing is deliberate: the company's 50th anniversary year, a moment to mark its entry into a market it once dismissed.
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why did Apple wait so long to build a foldable? Samsung's been doing this for years.
Because Apple doesn't move until it thinks it can do something meaningfully different. A creaseless display is the answer—that's what they've been engineering toward.
But is that enough? Samsung's foldables already work. What does "creaseless" actually mean for someone using the phone?
It means the fold line disappears. When you open the phone, your eyes don't catch that ridge running down the middle of the screen. For a device you're going to stare at for hours, that matters more than you'd think.
The price is wild. Twenty-four hundred dollars. Who buys that?
The same people who buy $2,000 MacBook Airs and $1,200 iPhones. Apple's betting that early adopters will pay for the creaseless tech and the A20 Pro processor. It's a luxury product, not a mass-market one.
What about India? The price there sounds even more brutal.
Import taxes and the fact that Apple manufactures in China mean the cost gets passed to the consumer. Samsung's Z Fold 7 is already expensive in India. Apple's will be noticeably more so. That's a real barrier for the market.