To say Apple is in rough waters right now is putting it mildly. The company has lost hundreds of billions of dollars since President Donald Trump announced his tariffs, and it’s been trying to change up its entire manufacturing plans to have more of its iPhones made in India instead of China.
Apple is also trying its hand at new technological trends. One that it has stumbled with so far is AI, as Apple Intelligence has yet to take off as expected, and the promised overhauled Siri continues to get pushed back. The other is foldable devices, with its first foldable iPhone rumored to come out next year. According to a new report, the company has some big changes in how it will release its phones in order to accommodate a new device, as well as a change in manufacturing.
Apple will change when it launches its new phones starting next year, as reported by The Information. Instead of releasing its flagship iPhones in the fall and its budget phone in the spring, Apple will reportedly stagger releases starting with the iPhone 18 lineup.
The reported plan would start in 2026 with the iPhone 18 Air, Pro, and Pro Max coming out in the fall, along with the foldable device. Then, in 2027, the standard iPhone 18 and the next budget iPhone would be released in the spring.
Apple’s reported goal for this change in release schedule is to improve production on multiple devices without having to focus all efforts on production at the same time. This would also allow the plants in India, in particular, to handle the production of the phones launching in the spring, as they would be based on older designs.
Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about this reported scheduling change.
What do we know about the folding iPhone?
The rumored folding iPhone is supposed to be coming in 2026, and there are a lot of questions about it.
To start, there’s still speculation on whether this foldable device will be an iPhone, an iPad, or maybe something different. There are two kinds of foldable devices right now: those that fold in half, similar to flip phones, and others that fold out to give a bigger screen, like the Samsung Galaxy Fold.
There are rumors of two folding devices of different sizes: one similar to the size of an iPhone, with the other similar to an iPad. There could also be another foldable device that’s even bigger, with a display of 18 inches, which could act as a foldable MacBook.
Apple should release its first folding device in 2026. If it does happen, expect it not to be cheap.
