Apple's iPhone Fold: What Seven Years of Watching Taught Me

I've been covering technology for five decades, which means I've watched every "revolutionary" form factor come and go. The tablet that would replace laptops. The phablet that would replace tablets. The smartwatch that would replace phones. Most predictions age poorly.

So when 9to5Mac's Fernando suggests Apple's rumored iPhone Fold represents the company's most significant product in years, I'm listening—but I'm also checking my notes from 2019, when Samsung launched the original Galaxy Fold and the foldable future seemed inevitable.

Four years later, foldables still represent less than 2% of the smartphone market.

Now Apple is reportedly planning its entry for late 2025, and the question isn't whether they can build a folding phone. Of course they can. The question is whether they can answer what seven generations of Samsung devices haven't: why does this need to exist?

The Hardware Specs: Familiar Territory

The leaked specifications paint a clear picture. Apple is reportedly building a book-style foldable with a 5.3 to 5.5-inch external display and a 7.7 to 7.9-inch internal screen—roughly the size of the old iPad mini. Expected announcement in September 2025 alongside the iPhone 18, with availability delayed to October or November. Starting price around $2,000.

Fernando notes the device will pack 12GB of RAM and likely use the A19 Pro chip rather than the newer A20, possibly for cost reasons or because development started years ago with older silicon. Storage configurations from 256GB to 1TB follow Apple's standard playbook.

The durability questions matter more. Apple is reportedly using "creaseless" display technology similar to OPPO's Find N6, though Fernando acknowledges the crease is "still technically there and still visible"—just less prominent than Samsung's approach. The hinge design remains unclear: will it support multiple viewing angles like a laptop, or only fully open and fully closed positions?

These are engineering problems Apple knows how to solve. They're good at this. What's less clear is whether solving them solves anything.

The Software Challenge: Two Operating Systems, One Device

Here's where things get interesting. The external display will run standard iOS—no surprises there. But what happens when you unfold it?

"What is Apple going to do with that internal display?" Fernando asks, raising the central tension. iOS doesn't support split-screen multitasking in its current form. iPadOS does, but that's a different operating system for a different device category.

Apple faces three options, none perfect:

Run standard iOS on both displays, wasting the larger screen's potential
Create a modified iOS with iPad-like features, fragmenting their ecosystem
Actually merge iOS and iPadOS, which Fernando believes is Apple's long-term plan anyway

Fernando predicts option two: "a slightly modified version of iOS that gives you a few more customizations like maybe adding more applications to a dock. Maybe of course giving us multitasking."

That sounds reasonable until you remember Apple's history with in-between solutions. The company that killed the headphone jack and the Home button doesn't usually do halfway. Either the internal display gets full multitasking capabilities—floating windows, split view, the works—or Apple needs to explain why an $2,000 device offers less functionality than a $500 iPad.

The Market Timing: Late but Not Wrong

Apple didn't invent smartphones, tablets, or smartwatches. They waited for markets to mature, then entered with products that redefined categories. The pattern is familiar enough to be predictable.

Foldables have now survived seven generations of Samsung devices, plus entries from Google, Motorola, OnePlus, and OPPO. The technology works. The question is whether people want it.

Samsung has never disclosed sales figures, which tells you something. Market research firm IDC estimates Samsung shipped about 10 million foldable devices in 2023. That's a rounding error in a smartphone market that moves 1.2 billion units annually.

Fernando believes Apple will "bring foldables to the mass market," noting that "more people will be using foldables now here in the US because Apple is doing it." That's probably true in absolute numbers—Apple's marketing reach and retail presence guarantee some level of adoption.

But mass market? At $2,000? The iPhone starts at $799. The iPhone Pro starts at $999. Apple is asking customers to pay double for a form factor that hasn't proven essential after seven years of availability.

The Use Case Problem

I keep returning to a simple question: what does this let you do that you can't do now?

Fernando's answer: "This is basically going to take an iPhone mini and merge it with an iPad mini when you unfold it."

Except most people already own both devices. The iPhone mini failed and was discontinued. The iPad mini is a niche product that Apple barely updates. Combining two unsuccessful form factors doesn't automatically create a successful one.

The video consumption argument falls flat—Fernando himself notes that the square-ish internal display "from a video consumption standpoint, it's not really great because everything is filmed in wide angle." Reading and multitasking make more sense, but people have been reading on phones and tablets for fifteen years. If they needed a foldable screen for that, they'd have bought one by now.

Apple's strength has always been identifying problems people didn't know they had, then solving them elegantly. The iPod wasn't for people who wanted a better MP3 player—it was for people who didn't realize they wanted 1,000 songs in their pocket. The iPhone wasn't for people who wanted better phones—it was for people who didn't realize they wanted the internet in their pocket.

What's the iPhone Fold for? People who didn't realize they wanted... a phone that unfolds into a small tablet? The insight feels thin.

The Longer Game

Fernando offers one genuinely interesting theory: this is about operating system convergence. "All the operating systems at one point are just going to kind of converge into one," he suggests. "iOS, iPad OS, and Mac OS will all become one operating system and it's just going to be a matter of which display size you want in your current moment and in your use case."

That makes strategic sense. Apple has been slowly aligning its platforms—shared apps, universal control, continuity features. A foldable device that adapts its interface based on screen state could be the bridge between phone and tablet experiences.

But that's a five-year play, minimum. And it requires Apple to execute perfectly on software that Fernando admits is "very curious to see." Building a hinge is engineering. Building an operating system that seamlessly adapts to multiple form factors while maintaining consistency is something else entirely.

What History Suggests

I covered the iPhone X launch in 2017. Apple announced it in September, shipped it in November, and charged $999—a shocking price at the time. It became the best-selling smartphone of 2018.

I also covered the Apple Watch Edition in 2015, which started at $10,000. Apple quietly discontinued it within two years.

The difference wasn't the hardware quality—both were impeccably built. The difference was whether the product solved a problem people actually had.

The iPhone X delivered Face ID, edge-to-edge displays, and gesture navigation—features that improved the fundamental phone experience. The gold Apple Watch delivered... gold.

Which category does a $2,000 foldable iPhone fall into? That depends entirely on the software, and right now, nobody knows what that software looks like.

Apple has eighteen months to figure it out. The foldable market will still be waiting when they arrive—it's been waiting for someone to explain why it matters for seven years already.

Bob Reynolds is Buzzrag's Senior Technology Correspondent