{"id":2114248,"date":"2026-08-27T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T06:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2114248"},"modified":"2026-08-27T09:30:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T06:30:00","slug":"do-we-really-need-a-foldable-iphone-heck-yes-we-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2114248","title":{"rendered":"Do we really need a foldable iPhone? Heck yes we do."},"content":{"rendered":"

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Home<\/a>><\/span>Tech<\/a>><\/span>Mobile<\/a><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Opinion<\/span><\/div>\n

Do we really need a foldable iPhone? Heck yes we do.<\/h1>\n
Just imagine that glorious, unfolded inner display.<\/div>\n
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\n \u00a0By\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stan Schroeder<\/a><\/p>\n
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\"Stan<\/p>\n
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Stan Schroeder<\/div>\n
Senior Editor<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n Stan is a Senior Editor at Mashable, where he has worked since 2007. He’s got more battery-powered gadgets and band t-shirts than you. He writes about the next groundbreaking thing. Typically, this is a phone, a coin, or a car. His ultimate goal is to know something about everything.\n <\/div>\n

Read Full Bio<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0on\u00a0

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\"iPhone<\/p>\n
A hypothetical rendering of the iPhone Ultra (Fold)<\/span>Credit: Credit: Mashable \/ Zain bin Awais<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In January 2007, Steve Jobs took the stage at the Macworld convention at the Moscone Center in San Francisco to announce a new product category in Apple\u2019s lineup: A phone. <\/p>\n

Back then, PCs were a bigger deal than phones (hence the big Apple<\/a> event of the year being the Macworld convention, which kept running until 2014). This would change soon. At that stage, Jobs announced a lofty goal. He\u2019d be happy, he said, if Apple would capture 1 percent of the mobile phone market by the end of 2008, which would mean selling roughly 10 million iPhones in a year. Fast forward to today, and Apple sells that many iPhones, on average, roughly every two weeks. <\/p>\n

Guess what Apple will release in September in our Big Guessing Game: Apple edition. Enter now for a chance to win<\/a><\/em><\/strong>!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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The iPhone that Jobs held in front of the audience at Moscone was a lot smaller and a lot less powerful than modern smartphones, but its form factor has remained pretty much the same. It\u2019s still a rectangular slab of glass, plastic, metal, and silicon with a large display on one side and almost no moving parts. <\/p>\n

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\"Steve<\/div>\n
Remember this guy? Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone in 2007.<\/span>Credit: David Paul Morris \/ Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

This is about to change. In September, according to numerous rumors and reports, Apple will launch the first-ever iPhone that\u2019s not candy bar-shaped. Instead, the iPhone Ultra<\/a> (or iPhone Fold, or whatever the name turns out to be) will be a foldable phone; a fairly regular-looking smartphone when folded, but with a large inner display that\u2019s almost tablet-like when the phone is unfolded. <\/p>\n

We\u2019ve seen foldable phones before; Samsung has several in its lineup<\/a>, which goes back six years, and so does Google, Motorola, and the major Chinese phone manufacturers. For Apple, however, it\u2019s a pretty big leap forward that begs the question: Is this really something the world needs?<\/p>\n

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I think the answer is yes, but I also think Apple made the right move by waiting until the technology behind foldable phones matures. No one wants a phone with an ugly crease in the middle of the display, or a phone that creaks and cracks when you fold it shut. Often criticized for copying other phone makers, Apple plays the long game and waits until the tech matures. When you sell millions of phones every week, you want to get it perfect the first time around. <\/p>\n

Still, many will shun the entire idea. By all accounts, the iPhone Ultra will be a pricy<\/a>, hard-to-get<\/a>, heavy phone that unfolds into an iPad mini. We don’t know Apple’s sales breakdown for tablets, but given the update frequency<\/a> and the company’s marketing efforts, the iPad mini appears to be one of the least popular iPads. It also costs $599, while the iPhone Ultra is rumored to be nearly four times that price<\/a>. So, who will pay north of two thousand dollars to have a beefier iPhone\/iPad mini combo when you can buy a regular iPhone and a separate iPad mini for less money?<\/p>\n

I don’t know how well the iPhone Ultra will sell. Perhaps it’ll end up being a side character in Apple’s lineup, just like the iPhone Air<\/a>. But it will, I’m sure of it, be a lot sexier and cooler than having an iPhone in one hand and an iPad in the other. <\/p>\n

The obvious benefit is having a regular-sized phone that expands into something that makes reading, watching movies, and even light work enjoyable on the go. If Apple gets the software part right, and there’s little reason to believe it won’t, the iPhone Ultra will be exactly this. <\/p>\n

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Related Stories<\/div>\n
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  • Apple’s iPhone Ultra might have a staggered, country-by-country rollout<\/a><\/li>\n
  • Foldable iPhone Ultra vs. iPad: How their screens (reportedly) compare<\/a><\/li>\n
  • The latest iPhone 18 news, leaks, and rumors: Release date, price increases, and color options<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n

    There’s also the (rumored) twist in Apple’s take on the foldable phone. It will be slightly wider<\/a> than a regular phone, and thus open into an even wider device that actually makes more sense than most foldables on the market today. Samsung took the idea for a spin with its Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8, and most reviewers<\/a> seem to like it. <\/p>\n

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    This looks so trippy!<\/p>\n

    Reading comics on a foldable, like an actual book.<\/p>\n

    The Galaxy Z Fold 8 is the perfect screen size in such cases! pic.twitter.com\/BZL8Ra4GOC<\/a><\/p>\n

    — Evanverse (@evanverse7) August 19, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n