Apple hopes to launch a foldable, wrinkle-free 18.8-inch iPad around 2028. BloombergMark Gurman writes in today On fact sheet. The company's industrial design group reportedly managed to create prototypes of this device that “have a nearly invisible fold” and would essentially be like “two iPad Pros side by side.”
Rumors about a foldable iPad have been floating around in the ether for years. Recent ones include a smaller model that Apple would launch in 2026 or 2027. Gurman's article today has strong echoes of the gigantic 20-inch foldable “iPad/MacBook hybrid” that detailed in 2022. That doesn't seem to mean it will run macOS, but Gurman says it “will have elements of both” Mac and iPad and that iPadOS “should be advanced enough to run macOS apps” by 2028.
Considering that Macs now run iPhone and iPad apps, it's not unreasonable to think that the street could go both ways over time. It could also help the value proposition; The 13-inch iPad Pro starts at $1,299, and any financial damage an iPad twice that size might suffer would be a little easier to bear along with the ointment of being able to run macOS apps on it.
Gurman says a foldable iPhone is still in the works, though he doesn't expect that to be “before 2026 at the earliest,” as other rumors have said. He also says that the information from his sources aligns with an alleged internal Apple display roadmap that made the rounds recentlyhinting at the 18.8-inch foldable iPad and Apple's plans to launch OLED MacBook Pros in 2026, followed by an OLED refresh of the MacBook Air in 2027.
