Samsung says Apple will launch foldable device in 2024

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And it's not an iPhone

iPhone Flip Concept
(Image credit: EverythingApplePro)

While Samsung is on to its fourth generation of foldable phones, Apple has yet to get its boots on. But that will change in the next two years with the first foldable iPad or MacBook according to Samsung.

According to Korean site The Elec’s sources, representatives from Samsung’s mobile division met with suppliers in October to discuss the smartphone market. 

While it would be in Samsung’s interests to talk up the possibility of Apple backing its innovation, this isn’t the first time Apple’s possible foldable tablet-first strategy has been rumored. Last month, the research company CCS Insight also predicted that Apple would test a folding screen on an iPad first, not wanting to go all in on fundamentally changing its biggest seller. 

“Right now it doesn’t make sense for Apple to make a foldable iPhone,” chief Analyst Ben Wood said at the time. “We think they will shun that trend and probably dip a toe in the water with a foldable iPad.”

A smart, if risk-averse approach

The competition is a lot less fierce in the world of tablets, too. Not only are there just a handful of foldable tablets out there (the Asus Zenbook Fold and Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold being two such examples), but Apple’s chokehold on the tablet market is hard to overstate.

While around 28% of people use an iPhone worldwide, over 50% of the tablet market is iPad branded. True, it’s a significantly smaller pie, but that just makes it a relatively lower-risk testing lab.

That makes a degree of sense. The main thing stopping me from carrying my iPad mini in my pocket at all times is the fact that I physically can’t — it’s too wide. If Apple was able to create an iPad that could fold down to half its width or height, that’s a serious selling point — especially if it still supported the Apple Pencil. 

Of course, the line between phone and tablets has been deliberately blurred by the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold series, and it’s not impossible that a theoretical 5G folding iPad could do something similar, depending on where the fold line is. At 7.7 x 5.3 x 0.3-inches, the iPad mini 6 isn’t that much bigger than the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 (6.1 x 5.1 x 0.21-inches) when open, after all. 

Here's the iPad mini against the open Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3, captured by my colleague Roland — who also wishes for a folding iPad mini, for comparison.

A photo of a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 around an iPad mini 6

(Image credit: Future)

But maybe Apple is thinking about going the other way, and using a foldable form factor as a way of making the iPad grow even bigger than the 12.9-inch iPad Pro. The company is rumored to be mulling over both 14-inch and 16-inch tablets, so perhaps a folding screen is a way of making that unwieldy form factor a bit more portable. 

Next: See our iPhone 14 Pro vs Pixel 7 Pro camera shoot-out to see which phone wins.

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Alan Martin
Alan Martin

Freelance contributor Alan has been writing about tech for over a decade, covering phones, drones and everything in between. Previously Deputy Editor of tech site Alphr, his words are found all over the web and in the occasional magazine too. When not weighing up the pros and cons of the latest smartwatch, you'll probably find him tackling his ever-growing games backlog. He also handles all the Wordle coverage on Tom's Guide and has been playing the addictive NYT game for the last several years in an effort to keep his streak forever intact.