Key Takeaways
- Apple is reportedly working on a foldable iPad, not a bendy iPhone, and it may launch within a year.
- The company is working with suppliers including Samsung Display and LG Display for foldable displays.
- Apple is concerned about the crease on foldable devices and is still seeking a cost-effective and easy-to-mass-produce design for the hinge.
There is an ever-growing collection of foldable phones on the market but you won’t find a bendy iPhone among them. That doesn’t mean that Apple isn’t working on something that folds in the middle, however, with a new report suggesting that it has its eyes on a different form factor entirely.
That report claims that while a foldable iPhone isn’t coming any time soon, we might be about to see Apple enter the market with a foldable tablet instead. The foldable iPad isn’t going to arrive just yet, but you might be surprised about just how soon it might be on your desk.
It’s like an iPad, but it folds
Companies like Samsung and OnePlus are already filling the market with foldable phones of various sizes and configurations, but not Apple. Instead, the supply chain watchers at DigiTimes report that Apple could launch a foldable tablet within around a year. This isn’t the first time such a timeframe has been mentioned, either – January saw a similar claim that 2024 would be the big year.
Now, DigiTimes is backing that up by citing unnamed supply chain sources when saying that “Apple is working with suppliers to develop a foldable iPad.” The same report adds that “Apple may be announcing this product in late 2024 or early 2025.”
It’s thought that Apple has tapped Samsung Display and LG Display as the companies that will produce foldable displays for its products, but it’s still concerned about the crease all foldable devices have. That’s something that other manufacturers are already hard at work on dealing with, and it seems likely that Apple will only launch a foldable of its own once it is convinced that the crease is as small as possible.
In fact, the report claims that the hinge design is already set, but that “Apple is still seeking a design that’s more cost-effective and easy to mass produce.” That could be achieved by reducing the number of components required to build such a hinge, the report adds.
If Apple does indeed launch a foldable tablet it will surely be the precursor to a foldable iPhone, although reports of such a thing being in active development are few and far between. Instead, it seems increasingly clear that Apple sees the iPad as its first port of call for foldable technology.
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