Apple's iPhone 17 has come and gone, and while we certainly like it iPhone 17 pro and its vibrant space orange color, I can't help but be disappointed that the long-rumored foldable model flip for iPhone was not part of the company's September launch event. Most Android phone manufacturers, including SamsungGoogle, Motorola, OnePlus, Xiaomi and Honor have been releasing their own lines of foldable phones for generations now, and it's starting to feel like Apple is late to the party. This could be a problem.
Apple dominates the premium phone category, but folding – which in terms of price fit into the premium class – are already stepping on its heels, Motorola tells CNET that 20% of customers who bought the foldable Razr left Apple. Meanwhile, Samsung is introducing the seventh generation of its Flip and Fold series. As Lisa Edichiko discovered during a visit to Seoul, “foldable everywhere” in South Korea, the home of Samsung.
Will Apple go with a smaller format like the Galaxy Z Flip series?
With almost every major Android phone maker entering the foldable device market, Apple is at risk of losing potential customers. It also risks allowing a rival like Samsung to become a popular name in foldable devices, which could make it difficult for Apple to make an impact if it ends up releasing its own device. What's more, early adopters attracted to foldable technology may be too entrenched in the Android ecosystem by the time Apple's phone arrives to be willing to switch to iOS.
Apple is unlikely to worry. An estimated 20 million foldable devices across all manufacturers were sold worldwide in 2023, while Apple reportedly sold 26.5 million iPhone 14 Pro Max phones in the first half of that year alone. According to the company, sales of foldable devices were flat in 2024 and things aren't much better in 2025. CounterPoint Research analystsalthough Samsung reported record number of pre-orders for its latest foldable model. Clearly, Apple feels it hasn't missed the boat yet.
The iPhone 15 Pro Max is an excellent phone. But what if he could bend?
Apple has always been successful at waiting, watching the industry, and releasing its own version of a product when it's ready. Apple didn't invent phones, tablets, smartwatches, or computers, but it did find ways to take existing products and make them more useful, more valuable in everyday life, and, dare I say it, more fun. This is why the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac lines dominate the market today.
As for me, I need to see Apple's take on a foldable phone. I have already written about how disappointed, I wear foldables. I've been a mobile reporter for over 14 years, and phones are becoming increasingly boring as they become little variations of the same rectangular slab.
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Foldable devices promised something newsomething innovative, something that briefly gave me some excitement, but after a few years that excitement diminished to the point that it faded away. These are great products, and while I like the novelty of a foldable screen, they're not a revolution in the way we interact with our phones. It's not like the advent of the touch screen happened when we were still pressing buttons to enter text.
I really hoped that the Google Pixel Fold would be phone to catapult folding forwardand while the recent Pixel 10 Pro Fold—Google's second generation of foldable devices—does offer some great upgrades, it still doesn't offer any kind of revolution. Instead, it looks more like a “me too” move on Google's part. Same for OnePlus Open. So instead, I'm left to turn to Apple, a company with a reputation for product revolutions, to create a new take on the genre that will truly advance the way we use our phones.
Google's Pixel Fold is a decent phone, but it doesn't advance the category in any meaningful way.
These innovations will not only come from product design. Apple works closely with third-party software developers, and it's this input that will help make the foldable iPhone truly useful. My biggest complaint with foldable devices at the moment is that while the hardware is decent, the devices essentially just run stock versions of Android with a few UI tweaks. These are regular phones that accidentally bend.
Few Android developers use the foldable format, and it's not hard to see why; There aren't enough users yet to justify the time and expense of adapting their software to different screen sizes. Having multiple folding formats already available means that foldable Android devices face the same fragmentation problem that has plagued the platform since the beginning. Android foldable devices are simply a more complex platform for developers than feature phones. Apple can change this, as has been proven with the iPhone and iPad.
Apple didn't invent tablet computing, but its iPad line revolutionized the category.
Given Apple's close relationships with top developers (not to mention its own massive design team), I expect the foldable Apple will eventually offer innovations that make it more than just an iPhone that folds in half.
And I sincerely hope that is so. I want to look forward to new technology presentations again. I want to feel the excitement when I get my hands on a new gadget and feel that “wow” moment when I do something transformative for the first time.
In short, I don't want to miss technology anymore. Apple, it's over for you.
