Apple has never been first. It was not first with the MP3 player, not first with the smartphone, not first with the smartwatch. And yet, when it eventually arrived in each of those categories, it rewrote the rules entirely. Now, with every major Android manufacturer having spent years stumbling through the foldable era, Apple is finally ready to fold.
Expected to debut in September 2026 alongside the iPhone 18 Pro lineup, Apple’s first foldable iPhone has the tech world in a state of restless anticipation. Most leaks point to the device being called either the iPhone Fold or the iPhone Ultra, with the latter increasingly favoured given Apple’s existing use of the ‘Ultra’ tag for its most premium products. Whatever its final name, one thing is becoming clear: this is not going to be cheap.
Leaked estimates place the starting price at over $2,000, which would translate to somewhere between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 2.3 lakh in India before taxes. Top storage variants, possibly going up to 1TB, could push that figure closer to an eyewatering Rs 2.7 lakh. To put that in perspective, the most expensive iPhone currently available in India tops out well below that range. Apple is entering the foldable market at the very top shelf.
What you’re getting
The design follows a book-style fold, not a clamshell. When closed, the outer display measures around 5.5 inches, functioning like a regular iPhone. Open it up, and a 7.8-inch inner screen reveals itself, giving users something close to a small iPad in their pocket. Both displays are reportedly being developed to be nearly crease-free, which has been the single most persistent complaint about every foldable phone in the market. Apple is said to have pursued eliminating the crease regardless of cost, developing a new material property that makes it, in the words of those with early access, nearly invisible.
The hinge, long the Achilles’ heel of foldables, uses liquid metal combined with titanium and stainless steel. This amorphous alloy is reportedly 2.5 times stronger than titanium, more resistant to bending and deformation, and produces a stainless steel-like finish. Samsung has taken seven generations to get its hinge to where it is today. Apple wants to leapfrog all of that on the first attempt.
Under the hood, the device is expected to run the A20 Pro chip, the same silicon powering the standard iPhone 18 Pro. That means full flagship performance and on-device AI capabilities, unlike several Android foldables that have historically shipped with slightly downgraded processors to manage heat and battery constraints. Battery capacity is rumoured around 4,200mAh, which is reasonable for a device this thin.
The trade-offs that come with the territory
Premium pricing does not buy you everything. The foldable iPhone is expected to ship with a dual rear camera setup, dropping the telephoto lens found on current Pro models. Fitting three camera systems into a chassis this thin is, according to engineers familiar with the design, simply not feasible yet. Apple is betting that software optimisation and sensor quality will compensate, though photography enthusiasts who live by the zoom will notice the absence.
Face ID is also out. In its place, Touch ID returns via a side-mounted power button, a configuration already in use on several iPad models. The reasoning is spatial: the TrueDepth camera system required for Face ID simply takes up too much room inside a device engineered to unfold to 4.5mm when open. It is a pragmatic call, but one that will feel like a step backward to users who have relied on Face ID for years.
Supply will also be a concern at launch. Mass production, initially slated for June 2026, has reportedly been pushed to August. Even with a September announcement, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has cautioned that supply shortages could persist well into 2027. For a first-generation product at this complexity level, that is not entirely surprising, but buyers should brace for long wait times.
Breaking down the hefty price tag
Industry analysis estimates the device’s material cost at roughly $759, pointing to gross profit margins somewhere between 53 and 58 percent. Apple is not pricing for the cost of parts. It is pricing for the category it is trying to create, and for the expectation it is setting: that this is not merely a foldable phone, it is the foldable phone.
For Indian consumers, the pricing also carries the additional weight of import duties and local taxes that have historically pushed Apple’s top-end devices significantly above their global base prices. At Rs 2-plus lakh, this will be aspirational even by the standards of Apple’s most loyal buyers in the country.
And yet, there is an argument for it. Apple waited while Samsung, Huawei, Motorola, and OnePlus worked through the hard early years of foldables. It watched the hinge failures, the crease complaints, the software compromises. It is now entering the category with the full force of its supply chain, its silicon team, its software ecosystem, and its retail machine. If the iPhone Ultra or Fold delivers even close to what the leaks suggest, it could do to the foldable category what the original iPhone did to touchscreen phones: make everything that came before it look like a prototype.
Two lakh rupees is a lot of money for a phone. It is also a lot of phone for the money, if Apple gets this right.
