Along with a foldable iPhone, Apple is working on a larger foldable device that's somewhere around 19 inches, but rumors have been split on whether it's an iPad or a Mac. Some reports refer to the device as an iPad, while some call it a Mac, and the split seems to come down to the operating system on the device.
Is it a Mac?
Some rumors have suggested that Apple is developing a foldable MacBook with an all-display design. The MacBook already has a foldable design, of course, but the difference here would be a single display without an included keyboard and trackpad.
A foldable Mac would be able to be folded in half and used like a traditional MacBook with a virtual keyboard, or it could be unfolded and used as a display when paired with an external keyboard.
Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has referred to Apple's larger foldable device as a MacBook, and he thinks it's going to have an 18.8 to 20.2-inch display. Display analyst Ross Young has also written about Apple's work on a notebook with an 18.8-inch display.
The Wall Street Journal said in December that Apple is working on a 19-inch MacBook with a foldable screen.
Is it an iPad?
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has referred to Apple's large-screened foldable device as an iPad, and he says it's going to have a display that's around 20 inches in size.
The Elec said in 2022 that Apple was developing a foldable device around 20 inches in size that folds down to 15.3 inches, and research firm Omdia believes that Apple is working on a 20.3-inch foldable OLED iPad that will be positioned as an iPad Pro.
While Kuo has also mainly referred to Apple's foldable as a MacBook, in 2023, he called it an iPad and said that it would come with a carbon fiber kickstand. Of course, Kuo initially said that such a foldable would come in 2024, something that did not happen.
Or both?
When thinking of a foldable with an all-display design, it's easier to picture an iPad, which is already a single screen. It makes sense for Apple to create an iPad that's able to fold down for portability and then unfold into a larger workspace, but what if it runs macOS?
We don't have much of a reference for an all-display Mac since it's not a form factor we're familiar with, but a 20-inch device that's all display and folds in half would definitely be something of a hybrid iPad and Mac device.
Analyst Jeff Pu recently said that Apple's large-screened foldable will be a MacBook-iPad hybrid that's likely to run macOS, rather than iPadOS. Such a device would presumably have a touchscreen, and would require notable changes to the Mac operating system as it does not support touch input. Gurman also claimed that some of the design updates that Apple is making in iOS 19 and macOS 16 to unify the operating systems will pave the way for foldable devices and touchscreen Macs, so a hybrid is a possibility.
Whether the large-screened foldable is ultimately an iPad or a Mac will come down to the operating system that Apple is planning to use. If the device runs macOS, it'll be in the Mac family, and if it runs iPadOS, it'll be in the iPad family.
Launch Date
Rumors about the release date for Apple's foldable iPad/Mac have targeted as early as 2026 to as late as 2028, so it's not quite clear when we'll see the device. It's possible that Apple is planning a launch for as soon as next year, and if that's the case, rumors should really start picking up in the next couple of months.
If we don't start hearing more soon, we can assume that Apple is aiming for a later launch date in 2027 or beyond.
Article Link: Will Apple's Large-Screened Foldable be an iPad or a Mac?
