While Apple eyes up what’s expected to be a relatively iterative update to its smartphone line with the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro launches next month, the Android competition is going into a foldable frenzy.
Just weeks after the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 launched, and ahead of the grand unveiling of the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold, Huawei is looking to up the ante with a phone that not only folds, but folds in two separate places.
According to Gizmochina, Richard Yu (the former CEO of Huawei, and the company’s current Executive Director and Chairman of the Board) was spotted on a flight using a tri-fold handset. It adds a third screen panel to the usual book-like fold of bendy smartphones, giving even more screen real estate to play with. Though you end up with a thicker device when folded, unfolded you’ve got way more screen to enjoy — in the case of this unidentified handset, something around the ten-inch mark:
Spotted out in the wild with a former CEO, it suggests Huawei may be on the cusp of a consumer launch for the device — one that may raise even more questions about Apple’s slow response to the foldable boom.
What’s Apple’s foldable answer?
Apple has long been rumored to have a foldable phone of its own waiting in the wings. It’s been working on an iPhone Fold or iPhone Flip for several years, not only in an attempt to face off competition from Android rivals, but to also re-invigorate an iPhone line-up that has been relatively static in terms of industrial design since the iPhone 12.
Rumors have pointed to Apple using a ‘ceramic shield’ wraparound glass that can be folded, and the company has been experimenting with a bendable display technology that can ‘heal’ itself. As for whether the design would settle on a clamshell or book-like hinge design is not yet clear — though the most recent rumors point to Apple being at least equally interested in getting a folding iPad out the door as much as an iPhone.
Either way, the wait is set to stretch on. Investor notes suggest Apple’s first foldable device won’t appear until 2026 at the earliest, which gives Huawei, Google, and other Android manufacturers a gigantic head start in development over Apple. That said, Apple historically is always fashionably late to any new hardware trend party — it’d rather be late and best, rather than early and mediocre.
