Apple’s foldable future 

The idea of foldable mobile devices is not new. The first smartphone with foldable displays, the Royal FlexPai, was released in 2018 with Samsung popularising the format a year or so later with its first Galaxy Fold devices.  Since then, there has been an expectation that Apple would release a foldable version of the iPhone or iPad – or perhaps an iPhone/iPad or iPad/MacBook foldable hybrid. 

It is surprising that Apple has not joined the foldable fray. While Apple has not often been first to market with innovative products (its strategy reflects a best to market approach rather than first), six years seems like a ling time to wait or spend to refine a product that competitors have been selling for several years. I suspect there are three key factors that have stopped Apple from releasing its own foldable device.

1. Not enough customers are not asking for it. The smartphone market is relatively stable when it comes to market share. While there are some people that flip between Android and iOS, and there are new users entering the market, these are relatively small groups compared to the installed base of iPhones.
2. Apple’s design language eschews imperfections such as seams. All the foldable devices on the market have an obvious seam where the device folds.  Until the seam or crease is eradicated, Apple will likely hold back.Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says, “Apple’s goal for a foldable device is to avoid the crease that current products have when they’re in the open position. And the company has made progress on this front: Prototypes of this new product within Apple’s industrial design group have a nearly invisible crease.”
3. Durability will be a significant challenge. When we think of hinges we might conceptualise something the hinge on a door – something that works for decades. But folding a screen is quite different. With many people holding onto their Apple devices for years – I have friends using iPhone 6, 7 and 8 – there are   questions about how long a folding device will last. Can we expect such a devices to work flawlessly for six years or more?

Apple’s engineers and designers will be working long and hard to solve these challenges. Patents relating to foldable displays have been around for over a decade. For example, rather than a mechanical hinge, patents suggest the use of a flexible polymer material. 

The most reliable sources of information about when Apple will release foldable devices come by analysing what is happening in its supply chain. Respected analyst Ming-Chi Kuo suggests Apple’s first foldable devices will come in about 2027.

Surprisingly, he suggests the first devices won’t be foldable iPhones but more likely a MacBook Pro – something that was noted in those decade-old patent application. 

What will Apple’s first foldable devices be?

While a foldable iPhone might seem to be the obvious candidate I suspect we’ll see a foldable tablet as the first foldable device Apple releases. 

A foldable tablet makes a lot of sense. Held one way, it would be great for watching movies. With a  slight bend, it would feel like a book, making it a great reading device. And it could be sat flat, in a laptop mode, with one half of the display used for content and the other providing a customisable keyboard. 

That could be a QWERTY keyboard for typing, or a gaming controller, or set of tools for a specific app.  This sort of device could change the way we use computers. But it will need to overcome a couple of issues. 

Most significantly, the typing experience will need to be good enough to be a reasonable replacement for a ‘proper’ keyboard. That will require some compromises by both users and Apple. Perhaps, Apple could devise a way to use haptic feedback under the display to give people a more tactile typing experience. 

The most intriguing question is what operating system such a device would use. No doubt, Apple’s engineers will have both macOS and iPadOS running on their prototype devices. Given we are unlikely to see this class of device before 2027, it’s possible that it will run a version of iPadOS that could run macOS apps or vice versa. Or we may see another new platform released by Apple. 

Apple’s first foray into foldable is likely to be a platform for the company to launch a new computing device class. Just as the iPhone and iPad completely changed our expectation of smartphones and tablets, Apple has the potential to do the same with all mobile computing.