This folding iPhone concept is unlike any you've seen before

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Folding Iphone Concept
Folding Iphone Concept (Image credit: nick1986)

What you need to know

  • This folding iPhone concept is older than the iPhone itself.
  • The iTalk concept was uploaded to YouTube on July 21, 2006.

There might be a ton of talk about a folding iPhone coming to market at some point in the future, but someone was thinking about that a full six months before the very first iPhone was announced. This concept was uploaded to YouTube on July 21, 2006.

Steve Jobs announced iPhone in January 2007.

Amazingly, the video was uploaded by someone with just 6 followers at the time of writing. The video itself has been watched fewer than 15,000 times. That probably tells you a lot about the world of 2006 — Apple wasn't the company it is now, that's for sure.

The device shown in the concept seems to have an iPod-like click wheel as well as two folding panels that reveal a large touch screen. It's all pretty futuristic by 2006 standards but is a long way from the folding phones we have in 2021.

Rumors of Apple launching a real folding iPhone — an iPhone whose screen folds, unlike this concept — just won't go away. It's something that will surely happen in the next few years, but for now, we'll have to settle for the upcoming iPhone 13 instead.

Apple is set to announce iPhone 13 next month, assuming previous release windows are being stuck to. It's set to be the best iPhone yet, with a new 120Hz display and improved camera system heavily rumored.

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.