Apple's obviously going to make a second folding phone

I've been using Samsung's new Galaxy Fold8 for the last week (More Birchtree members can read my initial impressions here). The reason I got this phone should be no surprise – rumors are very strong that Apple will be releasing a folding phone next month that has very similar dimensions. I wanted to get a feel for it, as well as having more insightful takes than most about how Apple does or does not do things with folding phones better than the competition.

Here's the deal, though: this thing is small. Like really small.

I've put a physical size comparison at the top of this post to show how the screen size compares to Apple's iPhone 17 Pro Max and 13 mini. As you can see pretty plainly, the Fold8 is even shorter than the tiny (by modern standards) iPhone 13 mini. Sure, it's a little wider, but the vast majority of the stuff we look at on our phones are vertically scrolling lists, and that content rarely benefits from a wider screen.

This means that when you use this device as a phone, it is the smallest phone you've probably used in a decade or more. Obviously it functions, and there are certainly some people who like that sized screen, but I think it's fair to say based on sales numbers, that most people prefer a larger display for their phone. For me, what this has meant is that while I can use the outside screen on this device, I don't particularly love it, and I find the experience to be less pleasant than using any normal-sized smartphone from the last ten years.

But the beauty of folding phones is that they can unfold and give you a larger screen when you want it. Unfolding this thing into a nearly 8-inch tablet that has a screen of a quality the iPad mini could only dream of is really cool. However, at that point, you're not using a phone anymore, you're using a tablet, and that's a different experience. Suddenly, it's a two-handed device, for example. This isn't a case where you have a small phone that can turn into a big phone…you have a small phone that can turn into a small tablet.

I'll reiterate now that I do think this is cool. However, I also think that there will be people who find this experience a bit lacking. They'll want a phone experience that feels more like what they're used to, and this passport-style device doesn't really deliver that. Samsung solves for this by simply having a larger version of this phone in their lineup as well. The Fold8 Ultra is a bigger device with a 6.5" outside display that sits in between the sizes of the current iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max. All the while, it manages to be 0.1mm thicker and 7% lighter than the iPhone 17 Pro Max.

As for my prediction, I think that using this passport-sized phone made it immediately clear to me that this is not a one-size fits all device category, and that a larger model is surely coming in the next couple years from Apple. I believe there will be Apple pundits in the first week of owning this device saying Apple completely nailed it and this is the perfect size for a device like this, and I think they will all eat their words. You may instinctually be reading this and thinking this can't be the case, but I'll point you to just a few Apple products with 2 size options: iPhone Pro, iPad Air, iPad Pro, MacBook Air MacBook Pro, Apple Watch…if Apple's got a hit product, they're gonna make 2 sizes of it.

As a bonus prediction, there seems to be a lot of momentum around the name iPhone Ultra, but I’m a little skeptical of that. I know it’s dangerous to make any predictions about Apple naming things, but I really just don’t think this one makes sense. This phone will be ultra in price, but it will not have the best specs or features in quite a few other ways, and when you add on top of that the expectation that there will be a second larger model in the next year or two, what’s that one gonna be called? The iPhone Ultra Max? If they do, I’m prepping my headline now: iPhones used to be a walled garden, now they’re an ultra max prison.