For various reasons, Apple is known to take its time in adopting new features, technologies, and form factors. Remember how long it took for Apple to release a larger iPhone? And we're still waiting for Macs to have touchscreen displays. It's no surprise, then, that Apple hasn't released a device with a foldable screen even though rivals like Samsung (
Galaxy Z Fold series) and Google (
Pixel Fold series) have multiple generations under their belts. That could change with a future iPad model, though.
As of this moment, the largest display found on an iPad product checks in at 13 inches, which is available on both the latest iPad Pro and iPad Air models. Other iPads feature 12.9-inch, 11-inch, 10.5-inch, and 9.7-inch displays.
According to what Bloomberg's Mark Gurman in his latest PowerOn newsletter, Apple will eventually blow those size options out of the water with a folding iPad that "unfolds into the size of two iPad Pros side-by-side." It's not clear which size iPad Pro he's comparing to, but even if it's twice the size of a 9.7-inch model, one that is twice the size will indeed be gigantic.
Apparently Apple has been working on this for a couple of years now, though a release is not imminent. Instead, his sources indicate that Apple is targeting a 2028 release. The information lines up with a previously leaked roadmap document claiming that an 18.8-inch foldable Apple device would debut sometime between 2028 to 2030.
Either way, we're looking at several years down the road for what's being described as a potential "breakthrough device." A lot can change in 4-6 years, so we'll see. However, the long development time would give the market a chance to flesh out further than it already is, as well as address one the biggest downsides to the foldable form factor, that being the crease.
Samsung and others have made some headway compared to first-generation foldables, but haven't really eliminated the crease entirely (
Motorola's Razr and Razr+ come close). Gurman says that one of Apple's goals is to make the crease invisible when the device is open, and he says that current prototypes are nearly there. However, it's still too early to know if Apple can achieve its goal. Others have tried and haven't quite gotten there yet.
The other interesting angle to this is where a folding iPad would fit into Apple's sprawling product stack. Gurman
states in his newsletter that one reason Apple never merged its iPad and Mac products is because the company wants consumers to own multiple hardware devices. It's a balancing act for one product to not cannibalize another, and the ideal Apple customer at the moment owns both a Mac and iPad, as well as an iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods. You could throw AirTags into the mix as well, though not necessarily the Vision Pro, which remains an expensive, niche product.
Top image generated with Imagen 3 via Google Gemini