Apple CEO Tim Cook (C-L) at the Fifth Avenue Apple Store (Photo by Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images)
As Samsung prepares to launch the Galaxy Z Fold 6, many have asked when Apple will join the folding smartphone revolution. Now, one industry insider has offered a date.
Details on the potential iPhone release date come from Haitong International Securities' Jeff Pu. Pu cites “increased visibility” in the supply chain that would supply Apple with the folding technology. This would put the mass production of a folding iPhone in late 2026.
Before that, Pu expects Apple’s foldable revolution to begin with a larger model, specifically a hybrid MacBook and iPad. This would come with a 20-inch screen that would work as a standalone tablet before folding into a laptop-styled device similar to a 13-inch laptop.
Apple continues to work on bringing iPadOS and macOS closer together to allow the software to run on either platform without increasing demand on developers. By late 2025, the two operating systems will have seen two more iterations, potentially reaching the point where a combination tablet/laptop system will run happily in one mode or the other.
The lessons learned in the development process of the larger hardware, the software required for the transformative moment, and the feedback from developers and consumers would all contribute to the next iPhone, with Pu offering a late 2026 release date that lines up with the iPhone 18 family.
Apple has traditionally been late to the party with new advances in mobile technology, leaving the early groundwork of folding displays to other laptop and Android smartphone manufacturers. With Samsung’s Galaxy Fold launch in 2019, a folding iPhone in Pu’s timeline would arrive some seven years after the first major consumer device with the technology.
This should be considered a fast and aggressive timeline both for the tablet/laptop hybrid and the subsequent iPhone. Yet the long lead times required for the resources to manufacture the volume of advanced screens that Apple would need before a launch could show up this early.
