What you need to know
- Rumors of Apple working on a folding iPhone won't go away, but Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says we could be waiting three years for it to ship.
- Samsung has already launched multiple foldables and has new ones on the way.
Rumors of Apple working on some sort of foldable iPhone have been around for years now, but Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says that we might have to wait as long as three years before anything ships.
Writing in his weekly Power On newsletter, Gurman said that "it'll be at least two or three years" before Apple is ready to launch a foldable iPhone. Gurman also points out that Apple would be opening itself to comparisons with Samsung's Galaxy Fold devices if it went a similar route, although it's difficult to see how it doesn't go that route.
Samsung offers two different types of foldable — one is tablet-sized and folds to be the size of a phone. The other is more akin to traditional flip phones and takes a normal phone and makes it smaller when closed. Apple seems more likely to go the former route, rather than the latter. Whichever it opts for, we won't be getting the fruits of Apple's foldable labor any time soon.
By the time Apple does get a folding iPhone out the door, it's likely Samsung will have had a few years at getting its own products right. Let's hope Apple doesn't have any of the same teething problems Samsung's Fold lineup had to deal with.
For now, we'll have to make do with next month's expected iPhone 13 launch. All being well that will bring a 120Hz screen and new camera system to the iPhone lineup, making it the best iPhone yet.
Just don't try to bend it in half, OK?
