Apple has never confirmed it, but credible reporting points to its first foldable iPhone arriving this fall alongside the iPhone 18 Pro. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says it's "on track" for September; analyst Ming-Chi Kuo describes a book-style design that opens to a near-creaseless roughly 7.8-inch screen, swaps Face ID for Touch ID, and carries a reported price of $2,000 to $2,500 — which would make it the most expensive iPhone ever.

1. Apple Will Finally Make Foldables Mainstream (Ming-Chi Kuo, Jason Snell)

Apple shows up late, perfects the category, and a billion loyal iPhone owners do the rest.

Apple routinely proves that it can arrive last and define the category anyway. Ming-Chi Kuo reports a book-style fold with a near-creaseless 7.8-inch inner display, a titanium hinge, and Touch ID, and has raised his shipment estimate to 8-10 million units this year. Even at a reported $2,000-plus, research firms IDC and Counterpoint project Apple taking roughly a fifth of foldable units worldwide — and nearly half the North American market — in its first year on sale.

And no one has to switch ecosystems. Six Colors' Jason Snell says he "would not be surprised at all if the iPhone Fold instantly became the best selling folding phone of all time," because iPhone loyalists who would never jump to Samsung finally get the option. Set against Apple's enormous installed base, even a niche device moves tens of millions over a couple of years.

2. Too Late, Too Expensive, Too Niche (Wesley Hilliard, AppleInsider)

Samsung has sold foldables for six years and they're still a rounding error — a $2,000 Apple version doesn't change the math.

Six years of foldables have shown the format is a luxury, not a revolution. Since Samsung launched the Galaxy Fold in 2019, foldables still make up only about 2% of the phones people actually own. AppleInsider's Wesley Hilliard calls the rumored device "a compromised solution to a problem that nobody really has," arguing it "will never be a good iPhone" and "never be a good iPad."

Apple customers don't want it. A May 2026 CNET/YouGov survey found only 13% of US smartphone owners would upgrade for a foldable design — far behind price (55%) and battery life (52%). At a reported $2,000 to $2,500, the foldable would be Apple's priciest phone ever, built around the feature buyers rank near the bottom.

3. The Real Battle Is AI, Not the Foldable (Mark Gurman)

A folding screen is the easy headline. Apple's actual problem is that Siri fell behind — and a hinge doesn't fix that.

Apple can bend glass, but it can't yet ship AI. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman frames 2026 as Apple's "AI rebound" year and warns that a strong quarter "shouldn't give air cover to avoid an AI reckoning," treating the relaunch of Siri — not the foldable — as the real test. Apple has repeatedly delayed its overhauled Siri, agreed to a roughly $250 million settlement over Apple Intelligence features it advertised but didn't ship, and is now leaning on Google's Gemini to power the assistant.

The same survey that sinks the foldable also undercuts the AI pitch. Only 12% of owners said they would upgrade for AI features, which means Apple is betting a $2,000 phone on two things buyers say they don't prioritize, while the things they do want — price, battery — go unaddressed. Critics like John Gruber have long argued Apple oversold Apple Intelligence; in that framing, a folding screen is a shiny distraction from the gap that actually matters.

Where This Lands

The bulls have the math on their side: even a niche foldable, sold into Apple's vast installed base and built with Apple's polish, could become the best-selling folding phone almost overnight. The skeptics have a point, too: six years in, foldables remain a sliver of the market, the price would be Apple's highest ever, and surveys say buyers care about battery and cost, not hinges. And the AI camp says both miss the point — the thing that defines Apple's year is a fixed Siri, not a folding screen

Sources