We're So Back 🤘

iPhones haven't been exciting for a while now. In 2020 we got an iPhone 5 revival with the squared off sides of the iPhone 12. More refinements have come since, screen borders have got thinner, but aside from the Dynamic Island in 2022 there's arguably little new and of note form factor and UX-wise with Apple's big seller.

Enter early 2026, with iPhone Fold rumors at a fever pitch but some people still casting doubts about the usability of folding phones. Android has the lead. Always willing to experiment to stand out from a US market dominated by iPhones, companies from Samsung to Google and Motorola have put out book-style and clamshell phones for years now. This iteration time has allowed them to get better at building those, while trying out features like having your phone half open so the bottom part serves as a stand to watch videos.

I had the chance to try a Galaxy Fold 7 in early 2025 in a store. I found the phone really nice and the possibility of opening it up to watch a video or read something I care about on a bigger display refreshing. But actual day-to-day users of folding phones say they use them closed most of the time. People are just too used to the candy bar format of phones to even bother unfolding them.

I have my own questions regarding a foldable iPhone. Coming from Apple Vision Pro and iPhone Air, two beautiful products, with clear differentiators, but that sold terribly because of a mix of being too expensive and being squeezed by better options from all sides (both things this new iPhone could suffer from), there's little guarantee that a bendable phone from the Cupertino people is going to be a success. Production issues and no official confirmation also weighed on my certainty that we'll see a foldable phone from Apple this year.

Apple, the big teaser

That was until this past Monday, the first day of WWDC 2026. As always, Apple opens their dev event with a keynote at 10 AM Pacific where it shows (in a heavily produced, marketing-video style) what it has been working on software-wise for the last year or so. That's the same day new Xcode and iOS betas come out.

I wasn't even paying attention to the live stream when it appeared, but towards the end of the keynote, when Craig Federighi was wrapping up all the announcements and hyping up Xcode 27, he said:

And we're reimagining how you can test apps with the all new Device Hub that brings every device, simulated and real, into one unified interface. You can now simulate multitouch controls like swipe and pinch, change your app's appearance in one click and even resize it dynamically to iterate like never before.

BOOM 🤯

That's a very clever way for Apple to talk about dynamic screen sizes without having to preannounce a product, something they've never done. They're using iPhone Mirroring as a cover for why this is needed, but the existence of Resize Mode in Device Hub is not as much a hint as a giant billboard saying "We're doing something... Soon.".

And yet more evidence

Then, of course, developers start digging into the innards of the betas and find strings that confirm it even further. From MacRumors:

As if that wasn't enough evidence for the upcoming foldable iPhone, X user @samhenrigold spotted two strings within ‌iOS 27‌'s frameworks that point directly toward foldable hardware: "foldState" and "angleDegrees." A third discovery, a new key that returns the total count of built-in displays on a device, is a further indication that Apple is preparing the software stack for a device capable of presenting more than one integrated screen.

Let's goooo. I'm team Foldable if you couldn't already tell. As I wrote about in January, I think the leaked form factor (which we got pictures of recently) is going to be fresh enough to avoid falling into other foldable's woes of being just too convenient to use as a regular phone (that is, in their closed form).

The opened and portrait orientation specially I think is going to be a hit. I hope. God please let this phone exist for enough time for it to get cheaper so I can get one 🙏

Of course I rushed to Apple Developer to download the first beta of Xcode 27 the day of the keynote and here's Resize Mode in action:

The screen area clearly snaps to some preset sizes, which to me are exactly the closed outside screen of the Fold and variations of the opened inner screen (landscape and portrait). This is it, folks. It's coming.

I believe this next iPhone is not a replacement for your MacBook and neither a replacement for your iPad. Apple would love for you to keep buying all those for years to come. I do believe this folding iPhone is a new form factor that will give us a fresh take on pocket computers. Smaller than the first iPhone when closed and in your pocket, sufficiently wider than a Pro Max when opened. It's been a while since I've been this excited for a new gadget, and I hope Apple delivers come September.

Tell me below what you think. Are you excited? Do think this could be a fresh take on a known daily utility?