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The last time Apple made a “small” iPhone—the iPhone 13 mini—it flopped. The message was clear: people want big phones because they have large screens and huge batteries that last longer. However, a new leak claims Apple’s first foldable iPhone, currently rumored to launch in fall 2026, could be both the company’s smallest iPhone since the iPhone mini and its largest ever.
From leaker Digital Chat Station, which MacRumors reminds everybody has accurately leaked many details on iPhones going back to the iPhone 12, is the bold claim that the foldable iPhone—based on a current engineering prototype—will have a 5.25-inch (diagonal) external screen.
This nugget is notable not only because the external screen would be smaller than the iPhone 13 mini’s 5.4-inch display when the foldable iPhone is closed, but also because it’d be the smallest one on a book-style foldable since the original Samsung Galaxy Fold, which had a 4.6-inch external display sandwiched by super thick top and bottom bezels. A quick search reminded me that Google’s first-gen Pixel Fold had a 5.8-inch exterior screen and the Oppo Find N had an even smaller 5.49-inch display when folded up.
I don’t know about you, but I’d greatly welcome a phone that I could use with one hand again. The upside to a book-style foldable is that you also get a larger, tablet-sized device when it’s unfolded. In that regard, Digital Chat Station claims the flexible interior display is around 7.58 inches (diagonal). That, too, would be smaller than the 8-inch folding screens on Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Google’s Pixel 10 Pro Fold.
My only concern is whether the foldable iPhone will be thin enough. The iPhone Air is proof Apple can make a skinny phone, but if the foldable is thicker than two Airs, then it takes away from the compactness, which is an important consideration when it comes to foldables. The Z Fold 7 feels so good because it’s both thin and light.
In the same leak, Digital Chat Station also shared details about the foldable iPhone’s cameras, which might have a mix of different camera designs. The rear camera system is said to have twin 48-megapixel sensors (my guess is a main and an ultrawide, but who knows, it could be a telephoto). The external screen is said to have a hole-punch camera (maybe a Dynamic Island?) and the interior folding screen might have a “UPC” or under-panel camera, which would appear “invisible” when the camera app is not open. Samsung used a UPC camera in the Z Fold 3, Fold 4, and Fold 5. It switched to a hole-punch camera starting with the Z Fold 6 because the UPC resolution was only four megapixels, which made selfies look like trash. The leak aligns with a previous report that said there would be four cameras on Apple’s first foldable.
The foldable iPhone will reportedly use Touch ID instead of Face ID (also previously reported by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman), presumably because there’s not enough space to fit in the TrueDepth camera system, which includes a dot projector, an infrared camera, and an infrared flood illuminator to securely recognize a face in 3D.
Outside of design compromises, the biggest deciding factor will be how much Apple will price the foldable iPhone at. Everybody is estimating at least $2,000, which is what the Z Fold 7 starts at. Apple, being Apple, would likely charge more just because the device has the iPhone name.
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Source: Gizmodo