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'iPhone Ultra' Likely to 'Repeat the iPhone X Story' With Delayed Launch

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Apple will likely "repeat the iPhone X story" by unveiling its foldable iPhone at the same time as the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, but starting foldable iPhone pre-orders at a later date, according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

iPhone-X-2022-Upload.jpg

Kuo today said manufacturing challenges have limited early production of the foldable iPhone, which will reportedly be named iPhone Ultra. As a result, he believes the device may launch at some point after the iPhone 18 Pro models.

In 2017, Apple unveiled the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X on September 12. iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus pre-orders began just three days later, while iPhone X pre-orders began six weeks later on Friday, October 27. Likewise, Kuo believes the foldable iPhone may not be available to pre-order until the fourth quarter of 2026.

Kuo estimated that the foldable iPhone could have a starting price of around $2,299 to $2,499 in the U.S., and he believes that the device "could sell out immediately after pre-orders open, with delivery lead times quickly stretching to 4-6 weeks or longer."

Apple's suppliers will ship roughly 7–8 million foldable iPhones in 2026, compared to 20–22 million for the iPhone 18 Pro models combined, he said.

If this information proves to be accurate, expect the foldable iPhone to be unveiled in September, but you may not be able to order it until at least October.

Article Link: 'iPhone Ultra' Likely to 'Repeat the iPhone X Story' With Delayed Launch
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2026/07/05/foldable-iphone-to-repeat-iphone-x-story/
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DBZmusicboy01 said:
it won’t sell out = most people will not pay over $2000 for a phone.
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“selling out” is only partly about demand/price. It is also about supply. Apple may very well sell out simply because of relatively limited supply.

Just take the current example of the higher memory Mac Studio options. Very expensive skus. They are sold out for several months, if they are available at all. Simply because of limited supply.
 
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Kind of a niche market. Apple seems to have stepped back from niche products... except when they're really just research projects that generate patents and publicity, with customers unknowingly footing the R&D bill. Yeah Vision Pro, we're looking at you.

Also, the crease.
 
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Elwe said:
“selling out” is only partly about demand/price. It is also about supply. Apple may very well sell out simply because of relatively limited supply.

Just take the current example of the higher memory Mac Studio options. Very expensive skus. They are sold out for several months, if they are available at all. Simply because of limited supply.
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Exactly. A lot of this is just marketing manipulation. "Selling out" makes it sound like the item is very popular...until you discover that there were only a handful of items to sell in the first place. Apple doesn't report units sold now either, so are "record iPhone sales" actually record units sold? Or record $$$ thanks to (ever increasing) higher prices, but the actual units sold are lower? We'll never know, despite all of the analyst supply chain due diligence. All of this is marketing.
 
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yuvaldv1 said:
Jesus Christ that price is insane. You could literally get an M5 MacBook Pro for less than the iPhone ultra.
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Yeah, **** that price nonsense. Especially for a 1st generation product that will quickly feel outdated as there is bound to be a lot of changes and improvements that Apple makes in the first few generations.

Besides, no matter if someone has the Pro Max or the Ultra, their phone will still run the same third party apps in a nearly identical way. Will it feel “cool” to fold a phone the first few times? I guess, but YouTube will still run the same videos, AI chatbots will run the same way, social media the same way, banking / finance apps the same way, etc…

The only real difference will be a slightly bigger aspect ratio, along with no telephoto camera and touchID instead of FaceID, plus any other potential issues that might come up (what case will give full robust protection? will AppleCare+ be an insane amount as well? hows the battery life? will there overheating in such a thin physical space? will there be damage to the screen over time? will any debris getting inside the hinge?).

I plan to save my $$$, keep it invested and growing at 10% per year, skip the first few generations and stick with the tried and true slab design. Let others be the guinea pigs in the same way they were for the Vision Pro 😄
 
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Can't see a world where apple hangs a delay after confirming in WWDC 2026. They more or less are likely to seek sells just given the state of markets to burn through whatever inventory they have.
 
Brother Cavil said:
Exactly. A lot of this is just marketing manipulation. "Selling out" makes it sound like the item is very popular...until you discover that there were only a handful of items to sell in the first place. Apple doesn't report units sold now either, so are "record iPhone sales" actually record units sold? Or record $$$ thanks to (ever increasing) higher prices, but the actual units sold are lower? We'll never know, despite all of the analyst supply chain due diligence. All of this is marketing.
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What matters to a company is if they sold through the amount they’re willing to make with their desired profit margin intact as much as possible. Also if the supply chain dividends due to the product existing were met benefiting the entire supply chain for lesser and future products.

It’s mass media outlets and armchair analysts in social forums such as this that debate arbitrarily the success aspects of Apple merely accomplishing such things or not.

Some will even make up their own success metrics and act like that was Apple’s success metrics all along such as claiming prosumer products are a failure not having sales in the amount of actual mainstream products.

Many waste their time on such things when all that matters for most is if a product meets their needs or not at a price point they’re OK with or better.

There’s people who will waste hours and even days of their time arguing and shaming a product exists that they never intended to buy nor any variant for reasons that most will never understand.
 
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Nyx1 said:
Price more than $2k just DOA product like vision pro and scalper will take all.
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It'll sell a lot better than Vision Pro! I find it hard to believe than there's a large market for such an expensive phone, but I'm not ready to call it DOA either. I don't believe that price was the main reason Vision Pro flopped. There are plenty of people in the world who can afford Vision Pro, but they weren't interested in wearing a headset and, more importantly, did not see the "spatial computing" experience as a significant improvement over their current devices.

Will the iPhone Ultra's additional screen real estate be worth the extra price? We'll see! I think Apple will deliver a very well-engineered product and I can see the appeal of a larger screen. Unlike Vision Pro, which asked customers to embrace a whole new way of doing things, a folding iPhone takes a product people already love and adds a great feature, a bigger screen. I can imagine many situations where being able to double my screen real estate would be a great benefit.
 
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Loving all of the 2026 versions of: Who asked for this?

Reminding me of when Jobs released iPod back in 2001, and many here said: "Who asked for a thousand songs in your pocket? Flop."

Clearly Apple doesn't know what they're doing. Again. Will Apple survive?
 
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lilkwarrior said:
What matters to a company is if they sold through the amount they’re willing to make with their desired profit margin intact as much as possible. Also if the supply chain dividends if the product existing was met.

It’s mass media outlets and armchair analysts in social forums such as this that debate arbitrarily the success aspects of Apple merely accomplishing that or not.

Many waste their time on that when all that matters is if a product meets their needs or not at a price point they’re OK with or better.

There’s people who will waste hours and even days of their time arguing and shaming a product exists that they never intended to buy nor any variant for reasons that most will never understand.
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Sure, popular is subjective, but there's also a threshold where any reasonable person would agree that something is popular. I don't think you could find a reasonable person on Earth who would argue that iPhone isn't "popular", for example.

As for the rest of what you wrote, mostly agree. Analysts, armchair and professional, track this stuff because, at this point, hundreds of millions of people's financial futures are tied to these big companies. Apple is as much a consumer electronics company today as it is a retirement fund. So gauging popularity does matter on some level.
 
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