Apple is widely expected to unveil its very first foldable iPhone tomorrow, marking a significant milestone in the mobile industry nearly seven years after Samsung initially brought the Galaxy Fold to market. While Apple is undeniably late to the foldable party, the extensive run-up to this highly anticipated launch demonstrates that the tech giant under new CEO John Ternus remains just as influential over industry trends as it has ever been.
Tomorrow’s monumental iPhone event is shaping up to be quite different from the traditional hardware showcases consumers have grown accustomed to over the past decade. For starters, the rollout of the upcoming iPhone 18 lineup is expected to be staggered. The high-end Pro models will reportedly be available first, while the standard base iPhone 18 is rumored to be delayed until early next year. However, a steady stream of consistent leaks and industry rumors indicates that Apple will pair the release of its flagship Pros with its long-awaited entry into the foldable market. The device is expected to feature a short, squat, and wide form factor, roughly matching the size and shape of a standard passport.
For anyone who has closely followed the mobile phone industry over the past year, this particular design choice will likely sound quite familiar. Over the past few months, major competitors including Samsung, Huawei, and Xiaomi have all released passport-shaped foldables, establishing an emerging form factor that appears to have serious staying power. Furthermore, industry whispers suggest that other prominent manufacturers, such as Oppo and Honor, have similar products currently in active development.
It is entirely reasonable to ask what Apple actually has to do with this sudden industry pivot. After all, Huawei’s Pura X Max launched back in April, Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8 made its debut in July, and Xiaomi’s 18 Fold hit the market just yesterday. Because the foldable iPhone has not yet been officially teased, let alone fully announced by Apple, it raises the natural question of how these Android original equipment manufacturers could possibly have copied a device they haven’t officially seen.
While the exact timeline of who conceptualized the wide foldable format first may remain an industry secret, there is compelling evidence to suggest the idea originated within Apple. The company has reportedly been researching and developing foldable iPhone technology since at least 2017, with reliable supply chain leakers pointing toward a smaller, wider form factor as early as February 2025. Apple’s formidable, highly disciplined supply chain—honed and perfected over decades under former CEO Tim Cook—is notoriously deliberate and slow-moving at the best of times. By the time public leakers caught wind of what Apple was preparing to build, rival manufacturers likely had visibility into those plans as well. Samsung, in particular, has almost certainly known about Apple’s foldable roadmap for quite some time, given that industry reports indicate the South Korean tech giant is serving as the primary supplier for the foldable display panels housed inside the new iPhone.
This kind of preemptive industry influence is hardly unprecedented for Apple. Last year, the introduction of the iPhone Air triggered a remarkably swift wave of early imitation across the market, resulting in competing devices like Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Edge, alongside ultra-thin and lightweight phones from Honor, Huawei, and Tecno. A similar phenomenon occurred in the laptop space following the March release of the MacBook Neo, which immediately prompted a flood of affordable and often colorful alternatives from manufacturers such as Lenovo, Dell, and Acer. This is not to suggest that competing hardware makers lack originality, but rather that they understand a fundamental reality of the modern tech landscape: when Apple steps in to shape or legitimize a brand-new market, competitors cannot afford to be left behind. Rare exceptions do exist, of course, such as the conspicuous lack of copycat devices following the launch of the Vision Pro, which signaled to the industry early on that the expensive headset was unlikely to become an immediate mainstream winner.
Prior to Apple’s looming entrance, major Android players had little incentive to force a structural design change on their own. Following seven years of continuous iteration in the foldable space, the Android market had settled into a predictable rhythm, punctuated only by the very slow arrival of complex trifold models. The vast majority of manufacturers comfortably produced devices utilizing the standard Flip and Fold form factors originally established by Samsung. Until the prospect of Apple’s arrival loomed large on the horizon, there was virtually no sign that this status quo would shift. In fact, Android manufacturers had previously been moving away from broader designs; early foldable devices from Oppo and Google shared a closer physical resemblance to these new wide folds, albeit in a slightly less extreme fashion. Over time, however, both companies largely abandoned those initial explorations in order to conform tightly to the established norms popularized by Samsung. The primary catalyst that has upended this predictable ecosystem once again is the imminent arrival of Apple.
The significance of Apple entering the foldable market cannot be overstated for the health of the category as a whole. Despite years of persistent product development and generational refinement across the Android ecosystem, industry estimates from Counterpoint Research indicate that foldables accounted for a mere 1.6 percent of total smartphone sales in 2025. By any commercial measure, foldables have remained a niche product category. However, the same market research firm projects that global shipments will surge by 20 percent this year, with Apple forecasted to capture a commanding 28 percent market share after spending just a few months on store shelves. Apple’s entry has the historic potential to push the foldable category firmly into the mainstream, mirroring its past market-shaping triumphs, and Android OEMs are desperately repositioning themselves to capitalize on the rising tide.
From an internal corporate perspective, this high-profile launch carries profound weight for another major reason: it marks the very first major hardware release overseen by John Ternus as Chief Executive Officer. Ternus is fundamentally a hardware person by trade. Having previously served as Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, he bears direct responsibility for the exceptional engineering quality and market-shifting influence that Apple’s product lineup has historically commanded. The ultimate test for Ternus moving forward will be his ability to maintain that formidable influence. He must successfully blend his deep technical hardware expertise with Apple’s world-class marketing, complex supply chain logistics, and expanding services ecosystem to ensure that years down the line, Apple retains its unique ability to fundamentally reshape entire consumer technology markets simply by deciding to enter them.
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