Was there ever any doubt Apple’s first foldable iPhone would be a flip phone?

Robert Triggs / Android Authority

The day has finally come — Apple is working on a foldable iPhone. Well, we’re not close to seeing the fruits of that labor, which might be two or more years away, but at least we know it’s coming. In fact, a recent report suggests that the Cupertino-based company has been working on two foldable prototypes rather than just one. And, to the surprise of absolutely nobody, it sounds like Apple’s debut foldable will be a flip phone like the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 or Motorola Razr Plus.

I think this is great news. I’d rather have the portability and convenience of a flip phone over the size and power of a book-style foldable any day. And when you think about everything that makes an iPhone an iPhone, I don’t think there was anywhere else for Apple to start.

It’s gotta look like an iPhone

Ryan Haines / Android Authority

Like it or not, the iPhone is the most recognizable phone on the market. As Android Authority, we have plenty of designs that we like better, but there’s no mistaking the square camera bump and centrally placed Apple logo for anything else. Apple engineers know this, too, which is probably why the iPhone 15 looks almost the same as the iPhone 14, which looks nearly the same as — you get the picture. There are minor changes year over year, but the broad strokes stay the same.

With a flip-style foldable iPhone, Apple could maintain almost all of its established design. It would have to make changes, like figuring out how to balance its cover screen with the existing camera layout, but a rumored iPhone 16 camera change might take care of that problem ahead of time. Engineers would probably have to shift the location of the Apple logo, too, but I imagine it’ll drop below the hinge to ensure that you have a piece of Apple branding no matter which side of the phone you look at.

Granted, Apple could probably preserve most parts of its existing design language with a book-style foldable phone, but there’s one fundamental problem — that wouldn’t look like an iPhone when opened up. Yes, the front would look like an iPhone, probably with a Dynamic Island, and the back would look like an iPhone with a corner-mounted camera and central Apple logo, but the middle would look more like an iPad. Not that there’s anything wrong with that — I love my iPad Air — but I think Apple would want to preserve the idea of its iPhone as being for, well, phone things.

There’s also the matter of how each type of foldable phone is perceived. While book-style foldables have always been billed as productivity giants (literally), flip phones have always been about style — look no further than Motorola’s Razr Plus ads to see what I mean. And, while I know that Apple loves a productivity device like the iPad Pro or iPhone 15 Pro, I don’t think that it would go for a tighter niche market for its first foldable iPhone when the stylish option — which Apple typically dominates — is there for the taking.

If there’s one thing that could sway Apple towards the idea of a book-style foldable, it’s the chance to make the thinnest device possible. Just like Apple wants to preserve iconic design elements, its engineers seem obsessed with making the thinnest device possible, for better or worse. Its latest iPad Pro is almost comically thin, and I could see an attempt to replicate that with a foldable iPhone. After all, phones like the OnePlus Open can be as slim as they are because they take full advantage of their extra size and spread their components out. That’s just not as easy to do with the strict limitations of a tall, thin flip phone — at least not without stripping back the battery even further.

iOS, meet watchOS

Kaitlyn Cimino / Android Authority

Of course, finding the perfect design for a foldable iPhone is only part of the problem — it’s time to figure out the software. As we’ve already seen from several generations of foldables from Samsung and Motorola, it’s easier said than done. I think Apple’s control over all aspects of iOS will enable it to roll out a well-optimized experience pretty quickly, but it will have to look to its Android rivals for inspiration.

Samsung, for example, is on its sixth generation of foldable phones, and they still have their fair share of quirks. It’s technically only optimized a handful of apps to run on the Flex Window of the Galaxy Z Flip 6, forcing you to download Good Lock to add the rest. You can only use most of the 3.4-inch AMOLED panel, as Samsung blocks off the bottom folder-shaped strip for its notifications and navigation controls. For the most part, it seems like Samsung would prefer you use its well-developed set of widgets on the Flex Window, preserving your actual apps for the internal display. Don’t get me wrong, I like that you can combine those widgets in a few different ways to make the most of the screen, but it feels like the Flex Window could be a bit more open.

On the other hand, Motorola is about as open as can be with its Razr Plus cover screen. You can easily add and open any app, so long as you’re willing to contend with the camera cutouts in the middle of the display. The Razr Plus has its own set of widgets, too, but they’re larger than Samsung’s, each taking up an entire panel on the cover screen. It means you’ll have to swipe a bit further to check on everything, but you also get more information right off the bat. I prefer Motorola’s approach between the two, but it’s the last thing I could ever see Apple copying.

Instead, I think Apple will take Samsung’s experience to the extreme, locking down its foldable iPhone cover screen and only allowing the apps and widgets that are perfectly optimized. Depending on the size of the cover screen, you might be able to drag and drop them like you can on the main iPhone display, but it all comes down to what shape Apple settles on. And if that shape turns out to be a square with slightly rounded corners, you can bet that it’ll feel a lot like a giant Apple Watch. You know, kind of like my colleague Rita wished for Wear OS a few years ago on the HUAWEI P50 Pocket‘s outer round display.

Hear me out, Apple: Just treat it like a giant Apple Watch.

Think about it — Apple has already spent years optimizing its core apps for the Apple Watch, so bringing them to the front of a foldable iPhone would give them more space to breathe. Your music controls would feel almost the same as on an Apple Watch, as would responding to iMessage or taking a phone call. And, knowing Apple, you’d be able to do everything without ever opening the phone. If Apple puts an Action Button on its eventual folding iPhone, I only ask that it supports Walkie-Talkie mode.

Yet, I’m somewhat ignoring the fact that Apple could merge iOS with iPadOS and create a book-style foldable, too. There’s a reason for that. Right now, Apple has far more apps optimized for iOS than it does for iPadOS, including some social media giants like Instagram. People (myself included) spend too much time scrolling through Instagram for it to simply not work on the internal display of a book-style foldable iPhone. With a flip phone, on the other hand, you’re probably only ever going to use something like Instagram on the cover screen to be like, “Hey, look, this is a silly place for Instagram.”

The power of (other people’s) nostalgia

Ryan Haines / Android Authority

Nostalgia is a powerful thing. It’s why Motorola kept its Razr branding more than a decade after the original flip phone’s launch. It’s also why the Blackberry brand has been resurrected more times than Beric Dondarrion from Game of Thrones. And yet, nostalgia is one thing Apple doesn’t get to lean on when launching its first foldable iPhone — at least not its own nostalgia. People simply don’t long for the days of the original iPhone like they do for the feeling of slamming a phone closed to hang up on somebody. But who cares? The people will still love it because it’s an iPhone, which will make it one of the best flip phones from day one.

If anything, I think the best thing Apple can do is lean on the people who want to slam a Razr shut but can’t imagine leaving their precious iMessage and FaceTime behind. Give them a phone with the features they already love but the fun spirit of a phone they used to have, and they’re hooked. This might be another reason for Apple to skip the book-style foldable, too — nobody longs for a phone that feels like their passport.

Apple might not have an old flip phone to lean on, but there's plenty of nostalgia if you know where to look.

Perhaps the nostalgia that Apple needs to lean on while developing its first foldable iPhone comes from a different source — the iPod. Back in the day, you weren’t one of the cool kids unless you had one — believe me, I had a SanDisk MP3 player, and it wasn’t cool. Part of having an iPad, though, was having the ability to scroll through your music, whipping your thumb back and forth to go up and down through your list of songs. If Apple wants to tap into a core memory, it should make the music controls on the cover screen of its flip phone feel just like using an iPod of old — Nano, Shuffle, doesn’t matter to me.

Now, I know that this is Android Authority, and by trade, I’m an Android guy, but I can’t help but be excited by the idea of a foldable iPhone. I’ve already said that I don’t think Samsung has been innovating with its flip phones because Apple hasn’t pressured it, but this might finally do the trick. All I hope is that one day, when the iPhone 18 Flip (or whatever it’s eventually called) launches, it spurs its Android competitors to reach higher.