Apple’s Super Thin Foldable iPhone Unveiled in Alleged Leak

Ever tried to fold an apple in half? Of course not. That’d be ridiculous. But an Apple? No, that’d be equally ridiculous, because Apple has never made a foldable device with a screen, so you’d just be snapping an expensive gadget in half.

As its Android arch-rivals, such as Google and Samsung, have been releasing smartphones that unfold to great sizes, Apple has sat on the sidelines. The assumption was that Apple was biding its time, perfecting its own take on the concept.

Maybe it was simply going to sit it out, considering foldable phones a fad, the way it sat out the touchscreen displays on laptops. That seems less and less likely, though, as we hear more rumors every month about Apple working on foldable devices, and now we’ve got another leak that claims to draw a lot of very detailed information from the device’s supply chain.

We’re no fans of linking to X when it’s not absolutely necessary, but Jukanlosreve’s post is so long that I’m going to link it here anyway.

It mentions that the iPhone “features a large folding mechanism on the left rear side…” suggests a book style like the Samsung Galaxy ZFold series, which is sure to be a main competitor of the foldable iPhone.

At 9.2mm when folded in half, it barely measures more than the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max, which are each 8.25mm thick and don’t fold. That Galaxy ZFold 6? It measures 12.2mm thick.

How Apple is rumored to get the foldable iPhone’s thickness down so much remains a mystery. Is Willy Wonka working at Apple now?

Samsung, LG, and BOE manufacture the screens used in the current iPhone 16, but the leak goes on to say that the folding screen will be manufactured exclusively by Samsung. For the hinge, “Options such as titanium alloy, stainless steel, or carbon fiber are yet to be finalized,” the leak says.

Dual internal batteries are expected to offer a combined 5000 mAh of capacity. Compare that to the larger two of the iPhone 16 range, the Plus, and the Pro Max, which contain batteries of 4674 mAh and 4685 mAh capacity, respectively.

More cases could mean more room for internal batteries, depending on a lot of other variables around which components are also packed in there, but it’ll require more oomph to run the larger-screen, folding iPhone.

The iPhone 16 Pro Max, as tested by Phone Arena, held enough juice in its 4685 mAh battery to browse the internet for 22 hours and 39 minutes. Simply put, that’s astounding. So with 5000 mAh, could the foldable iPhone have the same deeply impressive runtime?

Well, it’s too early to know how much more efficient Apple’s iPhones will become in the next year and a half. It has a lot more display real estate, at 12.2 inches when unfolded versus the iPhone 16 Pro Max’s 6.9 inches, and more display screen means more energy expenditure.

We’ve got a year and a half to go before we see the folding iPhone debut if Jukanloreve’s leak bears out. New iPhones almost always debut in September and go on sale in October, so the “fall” part of a projected “fall 2026” seems right on target, at least.

And you know we’ll keep you updated as we continue to iron out the wrinkles in this story and unfold just who wants a foldable iPhone?