After years of rumours, the leaks now point to Apple launching its first ever foldable iPhone alongside the iPhone 18 line in September 2026. It is the biggest change to the iPhone’s shape since the original in 2007, and the early reporting suggests a price to match. This is the product the whole industry has been waiting for Apple to make, and it arrives into a foldable market that Samsung has spent seven years building.

Here is everything the leaks tell us, how it stacks up against the foldables already on sale, what Apple’s track record with first-generation products tells us, and whether it is worth holding your upgrade for.

• Launch: expected September 2026, on the same stage as the iPhone 18 Pro
• Price: reported at $2,000 or more, which would make it the most expensive iPhone ever
• Form factor: a book-style fold that opens into a near-square inner screen, similar in concept to Samsung’s foldables
• Why it matters: this is Apple’s first foldable, and first-generation Apple products tend to set the template for the category that follows
• Should you wait? For most people, no. A first-generation foldable at $2,000-plus is an early-adopter product. The iPhone 17 Pro Max remains the sensible flagship buy.

The reporting from MacRumors, 9to5Mac and others describes a book-style foldable: a device roughly the size of a regular iPhone when closed that opens out into a larger, near-square display. This is the same broad format as Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold line rather than the flip-phone style of the Z Flip. You close it to use it as a phone, you open it to get a small tablet.

Key design points from the leaks:

• A large inner screen aimed at reading, multitasking and media, with a shape closer to 4:3 than the tall, narrow panels on earlier foldables
• A usable outer screen so the device works as a normal phone when closed, which has been a weak point on some Android foldables where the outer screen felt cramped
• A heavy focus on minimising the crease, the visible and sometimes tactile line where foldable screens bend, which has been one of the category’s most persistent criticisms
• A premium titanium-and-glass build in line with the current Pro iPhones

The crease deserves a closer look, because it is the single feature that has kept many people away from foldables. On most current devices you can see a faint line down the middle of the inner screen, and you can feel it if you run a finger across. Apple has reportedly spent significant effort engineering a hinge and display stack that reduce or hide this. If Apple genuinely cracks the crease problem, that alone would be a meaningful reason the iPhone Fold matters, because it removes the most common objection to the entire category.

Apple has been linked to a foldable for years, and the obvious question is why it has taken this long. The answer is the same reason Apple is often late to a category: it tends to wait until it believes it can solve the problems that make first attempts disappointing, then enter with a more polished version.

For foldables, those problems have been well documented across the industry: a visible crease, a delicate folding screen, dust getting into the hinge, battery life squeezed by the folding design, and apps that do not reshape cleanly to the unusual screen. Samsung and others have chipped away at all of these over seven generations. The components, particularly the folding screens and the hinges, have become more reliable and cheaper to make at scale. That maturing supply chain is a large part of why a foldable iPhone makes sense now in a way it did not a few years ago.

The timing also has a competitive logic. Foldables have moved from novelty to a real premium segment, and Samsung’s wide-screen Galaxy Z Fold Wide signals where the category is heading. Entering now lets Apple stake a claim before the format settles, rather than arriving years after the shape of the market is fixed.

Multiple sources put the launch price at $2,000 or above. UK pricing has not leaked, but as a rough guide the iPhone 17 Pro Max range sits at the top of Apple’s current line, and a foldable would launch above that.

This price is the single most important thing to understand about the iPhone Fold. It is not a mass-market phone. It is a halo product for early adopters and for people who genuinely want a tablet-sized screen that folds into a pocket. At this price it competes less with other phones and more with the idea of carrying both a phone and a small tablet.

It is worth being clear-eyed about what that money buys in a first-generation product. You are paying a premium for newness, not for a mature, proven device. That is a perfectly reasonable thing to want, but it is a different proposition from buying the best-value phone available.

Apple has a consistent pattern with brand-new product categories, and it is the most useful guide we have to what the first iPhone Fold will be like to own.

• The original Apple Watch (2015) was slow, with a confusing interface and middling battery. The Series 2 and 3 fixed almost everything that was wrong with it, and the line only became essential a few generations in.
• The Apple Vision Pro (2024) launched at a very high price as a first-generation device that impressed on technology but struggled on everyday practicality and value.
• AirPods (2016), by contrast, were close to fully formed at launch, which shows Apple can occasionally nail a first generation.

The lesson is not that the iPhone Fold will be bad. Apple’s hardware is rarely bad. The lesson is that first-generation Apple products usually improve dramatically in their second and third versions, and that the people who get the most from them are those who specifically want the new thing and accept the early-adopter trade-offs. If your priority is the best phone for the money, history says wait for the second generation.

The iPhone Fold will arrive into a market Samsung has owned for years. By September 2026 Samsung is expected to have launched both the Galaxy Z Fold 8 and a new wider-screen Galaxy Z Fold Wide (see our separate article). That gives Samsung two practical advantages.

Experience. Samsung is seven generations into refining the hinge, the crease and the durability of its foldables. That is a large head start on exactly the engineering problems that are hardest to get right.

The wide screen. The rumoured Galaxy Z Fold Wide uses the same kind of wider, squarer inner screen the iPhone Fold is expected to have, and it launches two months earlier. Samsung is clearly trying to get its version of that idea out first.

Apple’s usual counter is software and ecosystem rather than hardware firsts.

Where Apple can win is the software experience. If the iPhone Fold runs iPad-style multitasking on the inner screen, integrates cleanly with the Mac, iPad, Apple Watch and AirPods you may already own, and keeps the famous app quality that iOS is known for, that is the argument it will make. For people already deep in the Apple ecosystem, that integration can outweigh Samsung’s hardware head start.

Three real-world concerns matter more on a foldable than on a normal phone.

Durability. Folding screens have improved enormously but remain more delicate than a sheet of glass. The crease area, the hinge and dust resistance are all things to watch in the first reviews. Apple’s engineering reputation is strong here, but a first-generation folding mechanism is exactly the kind of thing that is worth seeing tested before you commit £2,000-plus.

Battery. The folding design eats into the space a normal phone uses for a large battery, and a big inner screen is power-hungry. Battery capacity has not leaked. This is historically the weakest area of foldables, so it is worth waiting for real-world battery testing before buying.

Apps. A foldable is only as good as the apps that adapt to its screen. On Android, app support for the unusual foldable shape has been patchy for years. Apple’s advantage is that its developer community tends to adopt new screen formats quickly, as it did with the iPad. If apps reshape themselves cleanly to the inner screen, the iPhone Fold will feel far more finished than early Android foldables did.

Honest answer for most readers: no, not for this one. Here is the reasoning, broken down by who you are.

If you want the best phone for your money: do not wait. The iPhone Fold is an early-adopter product at an early-adopter price. The iPhone 17 Pro Max is the flagship that makes sense today, and it will see its first price movement when the iPhone 18 line launches.

If you want a new iPhone this year: the iPhone 18 Pro launches at the same event and will be the better choice for almost everyone. See our separate article on what the iPhone 18 Pro leaks are telling us.

If you specifically want a foldable and you are an Apple user: this is the one case where waiting makes sense. If you have wanted a folding phone but refused to leave the Apple ecosystem, the iPhone Fold is the first device built for you. Just go in understanding it is a first-generation product, and ideally wait for the first round of durability and battery reviews before ordering.

If you are comfortable being an early adopter and the price is not a barrier: then this is a genuinely exciting launch, and you already know who you are.

The iPhone Fold is not arriving on its own. Apple’s September events always centre on the mainstream iPhone line, and 2026 is expected to bring the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max as the volume sellers, with the foldable sitting above them as a halo device. For the great majority of buyers, one of those Pro models, not the Fold, will be the phone to actually consider. We cover what the leaks say about the iPhone 18 Pro in a separate article.

This matters for how you read the launch. The Fold will get the headlines because it is new and dramatic, but the iPhone 18 Pro is the phone Apple expects most people to buy, and it is where the practical, everyday upgrades will be. If you are weighing up a new iPhone this year, treat the Fold as the interesting sideshow and the 18 Pro as the main event.

By the time the iPhone Fold arrives, foldables will no longer be a curiosity. Samsung has its eighth-generation Fold and the new Fold Wide, and other manufacturers have been shipping book-style and flip-style foldables for years. The category has its own established strengths and weaknesses that the iPhone Fold will be judged against.

What buyers in this market have learned to look for is a short checklist: how visible the crease is, how well the hinge holds up over thousands of folds, whether the phone resists dust and water, how good the outer screen is for one-handed use, and whether the battery lasts a full day. These are exactly the points the first iPhone Fold reviews will focus on, and they are the right things for you to wait and read about before spending £2,000 or more. Apple’s brand and engineering reputation will carry a lot of goodwill into launch, but a first-generation folding mechanism is precisely the kind of thing worth seeing tested in the real world first.

When is the iPhone Fold release date?
The leaks point to a launch in September 2026, alongside the iPhone 18 line. Apple has not confirmed the product exists, so treat the date as a well-sourced rumour rather than a fact.

How much will the iPhone Fold cost in the UK?
UK pricing has not leaked. US reporting puts it at $2,000 or more, which would make it Apple’s most expensive iPhone. UK pricing would likely land above the current iPhone 17 Pro Max.

Is the iPhone Fold a flip phone or a book-style fold?
The leaks describe a book-style fold, like Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold, that opens from a phone into a small tablet. It is not expected to be a flip-phone design.

Will the iPhone Fold have a crease?
Apple is reported to have focused heavily on minimising the crease, the visible line where the screen bends. Whether it succeeds will only be clear once review units are tested. Reducing or hiding the crease would be one of the device’s biggest selling points.

Should I buy an iPhone 17 Pro Max or wait for the iPhone Fold?
For most people, buy the iPhone 17 Pro Max or wait for the iPhone 18 Pro. The iPhone Fold is a first-generation, premium-priced product best suited to early adopters who specifically want a foldable.

Will the iPhone Fold run iPadOS?
This has not been confirmed. The expectation is iPhone software with iPad-style multitasking on the larger inner screen, but the exact software experience is unknown.

Is it worth waiting for the second-generation iPhone Fold?
For most people, yes. Apple’s first-generation products have historically improved a lot in their second and third versions, and a second-generation foldable would likely be cheaper, more refined and more proven. Only buy the first one if you specifically want a foldable now and accept the early-adopter trade-offs.

• UK pricing
• Exact screen sizes, inner and outer
• Battery capacity, always the hardest constraint on a foldable
• Whether it launches in the UK at release or in a later wave
• Durability and dust resistance ratings
• The official name, which may not be “iPhone Fold” at all

We will rewrite this article the week of Apple’s September event with confirmed details.

Read next:

• iPhone 18 Pro: ten things the leaks are telling us before September
• Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 vs Z Fold Wide: everything the leaks tell us

Sources: iPhone Fold price, form factor and September timing via MacRumors and 9to5Mac. All specifications are unconfirmed until Apple’s September 2026 event.