Why The iPhone Ultra Could Change Foldables Forever

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I’m a big fan of foldable phones. I just find them very tricky to recommend.

That’s the awkward position I’ve been stuck in for years now, and it’s the reason I’m so interested in what Apple is rumoured to be doing later this year.

Everything that follows is based on rumour. I want to be clear about that up front, because the gap between a good leak and a shipping product is where, understandably, most of the troll-baiting resides. And I don’t bait trolls. Ever.

But if even half of what we’re hearing on the grapevine and via the Gurmanator is true, Apple might be about to fix the one thing nobody else has managed to. Possibly.

The foldable phone problem

There are two kinds of foldable smartphones, and I’ve spent serious time with both.

There’s the flippable; Samsung’s Z Flip, the wood-backed Motorola Razr 60 Ultra, the Jimmy Choo-edition Honor phone that exists for reasons I can’t explain (and, yes, I’ve got one – and no, I don’t know why). I’ve always wanted a reason to love one of those devices. The one-handedness is lovely, the main camera doubles as a brilliant selfie cam, and they fold down to almost nothing. I’m just not the target market, clearly.

Then there’s the big one. Literally. The foldable. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, the Honor Magic V5 (now the V6), the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold – a name so long it barely fits in a sentence, but a very good phone. Samsung is the godfather of this part of the industry, and the current crop is genuinely impressive. They’re thin. They’ve got great outer displays. And they open up to this huge internal canvas that’s brilliant for multitasking and creative work.

Read our full Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7 review – 50 days later!

Here’s the thing nobody likes to say out loud, though: the better these phones get, the harder they are to justify.

Go back a few generations – the Z Fold 3 or 4 – and the front screen was so narrow it was a pain to use. So, you opened the phone. Constantly. Which sounds great, because you’re using that lovely big inner display all the time, but the narrow outer screen made the whole thing feel like a compromise.

Brands listened. Samsung, Google and Honor all widened the front screen, and now it’s brilliant, largely, across the board.

The problem is that fixing the front screen meant there was less of a reason to open up the phone and use that big internal display. So you’ve spent £1,600 at the bare minimum – probably closer to two grand – on just a portion of a device’s capabilities, because the front screen does everything you need.

That’s exactly how I fall into using foldables. I live on the front screen and have to force myself to open the thing. Which is a bit silly.

What Apple is reportedly doing

So, onto those rumours. I’ve read the leaks, scoured the threads, and pulled out the bits that actually matter.

The most interesting one isn’t a spec at all – it’s the launch strategy. Apple is reportedly going to split the iPhone launch. This means that in September, we’ll potentially see the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, and then we’ll have to wait until spring 2027 for the regular iPhone 18.

If true, I think that’s a great idea. We don’t need brand-new phones every single year, and spacing them out is no bad thing.

The reason for the split? Apple is apparently clearing the September stage for something new: the iPhone Ultra, its first-ever foldable.

Catch up on every leak so far in our iPhone Fold round-up!

The rumoured spec sheet reads like this:

• A 7.7 to 7.8-inch inner display with no crease at all – a big deal for the crease-obsessives, even if it’s never really bothered me that much
• A titanium build
• The A20 Pro chip
• No Face ID; Touch ID built into the power button instead
• No telephoto – just a 48MP main and a 48MP ultra-wide

All interesting. But none of it is the headline. The headline is the form factor.

The passport-shaped iPhone

The rumour that grabbed me is that the iPhone Ultra will be roughly the size and proportions of a passport.

I’ve been carrying my battered old passport around for a few days pretending it’s a phone (the things I do for this job, eh), and I’ve come to a slightly surprising conclusion. I love the idea.

Closed, it’s a stubby, narrow slab – and it took me straight back to my BlackBerry days. We obviously (surely) won’t see a physical keyboard on the iPhone Ultra, but that footprint is genuinely usable as a phone in a way the early folds never were.

Then, you open it and get a near-square screen that’s perfect for YouTube, for actually reading email, and for proper side-by-side multitasking.

Crucially, this, if true, is different. It’s not the Z Fold’s tall book shape, it’s not the Pixel’s, and it’s not a flip. Samsung went one way, Google followed, and Apple looks set to go somewhere else entirely. That alone makes it the most interesting foldable on the horizon.

Although we should note that Samsung is reportedly readying a similar device for launch this summer.

Motorola just went all-in on a big-screen foldable of its own – read our Motorola Razr Fold review!

Does it fix my two problems?

My first issue with foldables was always price. Does a passport-shaped iPhone solve that?

Probably not.

The rumours point to £2,000 to £2,500 for the iPhone Ultra, and Apple was never going to walk in with a £1,200 foldable. That said, most people buy phones on a carrier plan these days, so the monolithic RRP is softened into a monthly fee.

The second problem is the one that matters: having a reason to open the device.

And this is where the passport shape does something clever. Because the closed phone is so usable, opening it stops feeling like a chore and starts feeling like a genuine upgrade – a bigger canvas exactly when you want one.

That’s a far more compelling pitch than a brilliant front screen that quietly talks you out of ever unfolding the device.

The bit Apple has to get right

There’s one thing Apple does better than anyone, and it isn’t hardware – it’s the story behind its products.

The Mac, the iPhone, the AirPods – they all succeeded because Apple sold you a narrative that spoke directly to you. There’s always something in the story that makes you think that’s me, that’s my problem, this fixes it.

For the iPhone Ultra to land, it needs exactly that kind of story.

And it has a tricky one to tell, because the obvious risk is the iPad. Open that passport-shaped screen up, and you’re not a million miles off an iPad mini.

So Apple has to build a narrative that makes the Ultra feel essential without quietly killing one of its own products. That’s a hard brief, but I can’t wait to see what they do with it.

If any of this is true.

Will the iPhone Ultra work?

I genuinely don’t know. I haven’t held it. Nobody outside Cupertino has – if it even exists at all. The price is a guess, the shape is a guess, and the story hasn’t been written yet.

But for the first time, a foldable rumour has got me all excited.

Apple isn’t copying Samsung. It’s not chasing the crease. It’s reaching for a shape and a story that isn’t mainstream. Yet.

If it gets the narrative right, it could be the phone that finally drags foldables out of the “brilliant, but I can’t recommend it” corner I’ve had them stuck in for years.

Would you buy the iPhone Ultra? And if so, why – and if not, what’s holding you back? Let me know in the comments. I suspect this one’s going to get spicy.