Would you rather have an iPhone that opens up into a tiny iPad, a regular iPhone that folds in half, or a giant iPad you can fold up and take with you? It may be an unpopular opinion, but I’d choose the foldable iPad — and there are good reasons why.
An iPhone Fold or Flip might sound appealing in theory, and foldable phones can be an ideal choice for the right type of buyer. But as today’s foldables have proven, phones that bend in half come with some pretty hefty caveats. For one, book-style foldables never feel quite like a regular phone when closed. When opened, you get a relatively small tablet with a visible crease running down the middle — for a price that’s roughly twice the cost of a standard phone. Flip phones, meanwhile, don’t have much to offer beyond their more pocketable size and the ability to take selfies more easily.
I’m not saying a foldable iPad would be perfect, nor am I arguing that it wouldn’t be expensive. But if Apple truly is working on a massive iPad-like device that folds in half, as reports from Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal indicate, there are a lot of possibilities that could make it truly compelling. The iPad Pro is already a somewhat niche and expensive device designed for productivity, creativity and entertainment. Giving it an even bigger screen that folds in half would only build on that purpose, rather than trying to cram a phone and tablet experience into one device. Plus, Apple’s track record with the Apple Pencil suggests it could develop custom accessories for a foldable iPad that would let you use it in new ways.
The iPad started as a means to bridge the gap between two existing devices: phones and laptops. A foldable iPad would probably follow a similar path, serving as something that falls in between a tablet and a laptop. In that sense, it’s the natural evolution of the original iPad from nearly 15 years ago.
Apple wouldn’t be the first to try blending laptops and tablets; Lenovo and Asus already sell Windows-powered slates that can fold in half. But if Apple maintains the approach it’s taken with the original iPad, it could succeed where both smartphone and PC makers have fallen short thus far.
Read more: What’s Next for iPhones? Apple Seems to Have Big Plans in 2025
Why a foldable iPad makes sense
The iPad Pro is still a big blank slate of potential. There’s no reason Apple couldn’t reinvent it further.
The goal behind a foldable iPad would likely be to provide a massive screen that you can reasonably carry with you. The largest size for most laptops is usually around 17 or 18 inches, and oftentimes those are heavy-duty laptops meant for gaming or productivity, and they don’t always have the longest battery life. In other words, there aren’t many options out there for those who just want a big, lightweight screen they can carry with them without much fuss.
Companies like Lenovo and Asus are already trying to address this issue with their own foldable tablets, such as the ThinkPadX1 Fold 16 and Zenbook Fold 17 OLED. But those devices are expensive and come with their own fair share of shortcomings, such as the ThinkPad’s poor battery life and cramped display in laptop mode and the Zenbook’s somewhat clunky build.
Apple’s own take on a foldable tablet could measure about 19 inches, making it nearly as large as a desktop monitor when unfolded, according to The Wall Street Journal. Bloomberg reports that the company has a foldable iPad in the works that’s about the size of two iPad Pros put together that could launch in 2028.
The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold is one of the few foldable tablets out there.
One reason why a foldable iPad could be more appealing than a foldable iPhone — which Apple is also said to be working on — is because our relationship with tablets is much different than with smartphones. Tablets are meant to be a secondary, in-between type of device, while smartphones are arguably the most important gadgets in our lives.
A 2020 survey from texting service SimpleTexting found that 44% of millennials would rather be separated from their significant other for a month than their smartphone. I don’t think anyone would say the same for their tablet or laptop.
That gives Apple more leeway to experiment with the iPad. If your phone feels too heavy, is too difficult to use with one hand, dies quickly or has a giant crease running down the middle of it, you’re probably going to run out of patience much sooner than you would with a tablet.
Perhaps that partially explains why foldable phones are still a niche even in 2024, roughly half a decade after Samsung’s first foldable phone arrived. Foldable phone shipments are expected to reach 25 million units in 2024, according to the International Data Corporation, representing a sliver of the 1.24 billion smartphones the firm estimates will ship this year. A CNET survey in partnership with YouGov also found that 52% of smartphone owners aren’t interested in buying a foldable phone.
The Galaxy Z Fold 6 has come a long way and feels much more like a regular phone when closed. But it’s still not quite there, and it’s even more expensive than its predecessor.
Apple already targets specific audiences with the iPad, particularly when it comes to the larger Pro models aimed at artists and musicians looking to get work done on the go. And tablets in general have a more focused use case than phones; they’re generally designed for watching movies, web browsing, reading books, playing games or doing light work when you don’t want to lug around your laptop. Those are the exact types of scenarios you’d want a larger screen for, which is the biggest benefit most foldables bring.
Yes, most people use their phones for those very same tasks, but usually out of necessity and convenience rather than preference. There’s no arguing that reading a book or streaming Netflix on a tablet is going to be a better experience than on a tiny 6-inch phone screen.
Additionally, Apple’s iPad software is already designed for hybrid devices in a sense. While Apple doesn’t have a true alternative to the two-in-one laptops you’d find in the Windows world, it’s been gradually adding more productivity-oriented tools to make it feel more like a Mac.
Take Stage Manager, for example, which organizes apps with the hope of making them feel more like using windows on a desktop. Apple also offers versions of its video and music editing software, Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro, for the iPad that are almost as capable as the Mac versions.
Apple gave the iPad its own operating system in 2019 after years of lumping it in with iOS, perhaps laying the foundation for software that’s meant to evolve and change to fit new types of devices.
At the same time, the Mac’s interface has evolved to feel more like the iPhone’s and iPad’s, in yet another sign that Apple wants to make its desktop and mobile experiences more consistent with one another while keeping them separate — for better or worse.
Read more: Why Apple’s Future Could Depend on Siri
A foldable iPad won’t come easy, but Apple has some advantages
The Pencil Pro brings up a contextual menu on-screen when squeezed, when apps that have been upgraded add support for it.
Apple, of course, will have its fair share of obstacles to overcome. While Apple’s software strategy could be one of its biggest advantages, there’s also a chance it could make the iPad feel even more confusing.
The iPad Pro feels caught in a strange place because it can’t quite do everything your laptop can but comes frustratingly close to doing so, as my colleague Scott Stein has written about at length. Apple should look at a foldable iPad as an opportunity to solve this problem rather than exacerbating the iPad’s sometimes ambiguous role.
Not to mention, a massive screen likely will require a massive battery. Early foldable phones like the original Samsung Galaxy Fold suffered from poor battery life, underscoring the technical hurdles that often come with developing a new category of devices. It’s a challenge that may be easier for Apple to navigate now that it’s begun putting its own M-series chips, which also power its MacBooks and provide huge gains in battery life over Intel’s chips, inside its high-end iPads.
But there are some factors working in Apple’s favor. For one, Apple already dominates the tablet space with 31.7% of the global market, according to The International Data Corporation, making it the world’s biggest tablet seller. If anyone is going to convince shoppers to splurge on a fancy new foldable tablet, it could be Apple — even though a foldable iPad will undoubtedly be wildly expensive.
Plus, Apple’s approach in thinking of the iPad as its own type of device rather than a laptop that folds in half could result in more compelling software. Not only would you have a bigger canvas for apps and games, but I could imagine Apple adding new elements to the user interface to make the iPad feel more like a laptop alternative.
It also opens up a lot of possibilities for Apple to develop new accessories that make the most of having a large screen you can take with you. What about a desktop stand that props the iPad up on your desk, making it resemble an iMac? I’d love to see Apple take a page from Microsoft’s playbook with the Surface Dial the Windows PC maker introduced for its Surface Studio all-in-one PC nearly a decade ago. With its puck-shaped attachment, Microsoft proposed a novel and clever way to interact with a giant display beyond just tapping and swiping.
The Surface Dial was a clever take on how to navigate a giant screen.
My biggest criticism about foldable phones is that it doesn’t feel like the software has caught up to the hardware. Many of the features that make foldables unique — like the ability to split apps between the top and bottom portions of the screen — seem more like an answer to a problem foldables created rather than a reason to buy one.
But Apple has been morphing the iPad’s software for years to make it feel more like a hybrid computer that can take over some of your Mac’s duties. That makes me hope it’ll have a more intriguing vision for how software should work compared to what we’ve seen from foldable phone and PC makers so far.
Perhaps Steve Jobs said it best when announcing the first iPad in 2010. “The bar is pretty high,” he said minutes before introducing Apple’s original tablet. “In order to really create a new category of devices, those devices are going to have to be far better at doing some key tasks.”
If a foldable iPad is in Apple’s future, let’s hope it follows that guiding principle.
