It has long been speculated that Apple will move into the folding device space some time soon. We’ve previously reported that we could see the iPhone Fold in 2026, but so far very little is known about the device. Some details might have just become a little clearer, however.
A reliable leaker has given us some details about the expected display resolution, which tells us a lot more about this device. Digital Chat Station (via Android Authority) has said that the internal display will have a 2713 x 1920 pixel resolution and that the external display will be 2088 x 1422 pixels. The internal display will be 7.76-inches and the external display will be 5.49-inches.
Those work out to a 13:9 aspect ratio for both displays, with the internal display in landscape and the external display in portrait. That internal display, once unfurled, will be closer to the iPad mini than any existing iPhone. The iPad mini has a 14:9 aspect, at 8.3 inches.
However, the iPhone Fold, while being smaller on the diagonal, has a much higher resolution. If these details are correct, it will be a higher resolution than any iPad that Apple currently offers.
Crunching the numbers on these rumoured displays gives a pixel density of 428ppi on the internal display, while the external display would come in at 460ppi. The iPhone 16 is 460ppi, so there’s good consistency here, but the iPad mini currently has pixel density of 326ppi, and all the other iPad models are 264ppi.
To help visualise what these displays might look like, I’ve drawn out the aspects in the image below so you can see how the two compare.
What you can also see here is just how wide that external display is. The current iPhone models use a 20:9 aspect, which is pretty tall, but this leak suggests that it will be a squat display. This is a problem that folding phone manufacturers have been battling with for a while, with early Samsung folding phones having a skinny 23.1:9 display, and the Pixel Fold landing with a 17:9 external display.
Of those, people thought the Samsung was too narrow, while the Pixel Fold was wide but a little squat. However, based on these details, the iPhone Fold would be even more squished. Exactly how Apple would reconfigure the user interface and what that user experience would be like, remains to be seen.
iPhone Fold could use first-for-Apple camera
Expanding on these details, it’s also reported by the source that Apple could use an under-display camera on the internal display. That will be the first time that Apple has used this technology, which is most familiar from Samsung’s folding phones, like the Galaxy Z Fold 6.
An under-display camera is a neat solution from a design perspective because you don’t have to break that display with notches to accommodate the camera. The downside is that the quality is relatively poor and there’s a slight disruption to the display too. It’s likely that this will just be a FaceTime camera and not designed for taking selfies.
But this also raises the question of how Apple will handle unlocking. If this is to be a premium device (which it unquestionably will be) then Face ID would be expected. Whether an under-display solution would handle this remains questionable, given that you need a dot projector, infrared camera and infrared illuminator to make it function.
Recapping here, we have display specs from a reliable source, suggesting a book-style folding device that opens to give a display more like an iPad mini. The result could be a really high-quality internal display, but with a short and wide external display.
