The Foldable iPhone Is Apple Admitting It’s Out of Ideas
Right?
Bloomberg confirmed it. Apple’s first foldable iPhone is on track for September. Book-style design, 7.6-inch display when open, no visible crease, starting around $2,300.
Samsung did this seven years ago. Basically.
The timeline
Samsung shipped the Galaxy Fold in September 2019. It was not great. Review units broke. They recalled them, redesigned the hinge, and shipped again.
But they shipped.
By 2021, foldables were water-resistant.
By 2022, they were mainstream enough that Samsung was selling millions.
By 2025, the Galaxy Z Fold was in its sixth generation. Thinner, lighter, more polished every year.
Apple watched all of that happen. For seven years.
The Apple argument
I know the counterargument. Everyone does.
Apple doesn’t do things first. Apple does things right. They wait until the technology is mature, then they ship something better than everyone else.
That used to be true.
The original iPhone in 2007 wasn’t the first smartphone. But it redefined what a smartphone was. The iPad wasn’t the first tablet. But it killed every tablet that came before it. Apple Silicon wasn’t the first ARM chip. But it made x86 laptops feel slow overnight.
Those were moments where Apple changed the rules. But… the foldable iPhone rumors don’t feel like that.
What’s new
The crease. Or rather, the lack of one. That was supposed to be the “new” thing. But opposition did that just now. Basically no crease.
Apple reportedly spent years eliminating the visible crease (really?), “regardless of cost.” But Android foldable do that now too.
So, what’s left?
The iPhone brand. Not much else, right?
The rest of the spec sheet reads like trade-offs. Two cameras instead of three. No Face ID, back to Touch ID. Battery around 5,000 mAh. Starting at $2,300, going up to nearly $2,900 for the 1TB model.
You’re paying more and getting less, it seems like. For a phone that folds. Nothing more.
The problem
The foldable iPhone won’t be bad.
It’ll probably be well-built, smooth, tightly integrated with iOS. Apple will make it feel premium. That’s what Apple does.
The problem is the signal.
Apple used to define categories. Now it’s entering categories that Samsung defined almost a decade ago. The M-series chips were the last time Apple genuinely surprised the industry. That was already half a decade ago.
The MacBook Neo is interesting. It’s hyped. Not because it’s a new category or Apple changing the game. It’s because it’s cheap. For Apple.
A foldable phone in 2026 is not really innovation anymore. It’s a product line extension.
But that’s what Apple does right now, isn’t it? Product line extension. Not much else.
Who this is for
Well, people who want a foldable phone but won’t buy Samsung or Google or Oppo. That’s about it.
That’s a market. Probably. Apple’s ecosystem lock-in is strong, and many iPhone users would never switch to Android just to get a foldable.
So they’ll sell millions. Of course they will. They always do.
But selling millions and being innovative are two different things. The iPhone 18 Pro will outsell the foldable. The foldable is a flex purchase. A $2,300 conversation starter.
What I’d rather see
A real Siri replacement. Real personal AI with privacy embedded.
Not the incremental updates they’ve been shipping, but something that actually competes with what Google and OpenAI are doing in conversational AI.
A Mac that runs local AI models well to be useful for developers. Out of the box, ideally.
And many updates for existing apps. Bug fixes, cosmetic upgrades, stability improvements, and more. I need that.
But none of those are as photogenic as a folding phone.
The price question
$2,300 to $2,900.
For context, that’s a MacBook Pro. More than an iPad Pro. More than 3 great phones that don’t fold.
Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold is around $1,800. Still expensive. But $500 to $1,100 cheaper for a phone that already folds, already has three cameras, already has six generations of refinement.
Apple’s pitch will be: no crease, better build quality, iOS. Samsung’s pitch will be: we’ve been doing this since you were still making flat phones.
Both are fair.
The Bottom Line
Apple will ship a foldable iPhone in September. It’ll be beautiful. It’ll be expensive. It’ll sell.
But it won’t be really anything special, I feel like. Could prove me wrong. We’ll see.
For now, I don’t see it redefining a category. It won’t make you think differently about what a phone can do.
It’ll just be an iPhone that folds.
Maybe that’s enough.