In summary:
- Macworld reports that Apple continues developing a gigantic foldable iPad with an 18-inch screen, despite previous speculation about the project’s cancellation.
- Development faces significant challenges around typing practicality, pushing the potential release timeline to the late 2020s with no guaranteed launch.
- The device aims to provide a Mac-sized display while maintaining iPad portability, designed as a pure iPad rather than a Mac-iPad hybrid.
We shouldn’t have to wait much longer for Apple’s first foldable device, with the iPhone Fold expected to launch this September. But there are plenty more folding devices in the company’s development pipeline, including one that will be particularly interesting for Apple fans who want a really big screen.
In the latest instalment of his Power On newsletter, leaker Mark Gurman says what he describes as “a gigantic, foldable iPad” is currently in development. This will have “a Mac-sized giant screen,” he says, but retain the iPad’s signature portability thanks to its foldable nature. If you include laptops, the Mac’s screen currently starts at just 13.6 inches for the smaller MacBook Air, which is barely any bigger than the largest iPad Pro, but based on previous rumors, we’re likely looking at a screen in the region of 18 inches.
As you will have guessed, this isn’t a new concept. Gurman himself predicted back in December 2024 that Apple’s “vision for the future of computing” was a foldable device the size of two iPad Pros side by side, yet capable of fitting into a backpack when folded up.
The idea was revisited last spring, when GF Securities analyst Jeff Pu predicted that the so-called iPad Fold would launch alongside a foldable iPhone towards the end of 2026, but by October, reports were far less optimistic. The mega tablet had, they now said, hit “development snags” and might never make it to market.
Those snags have evidently not entirely gone away, and Gurman acknowledges in his latest report that hurdles still to be surmounted include “concerns about its practicality when it comes to typing.” Quite a fundamental issue, one would have thought, for a device intended for use as an aid to productivity on the go. So the device is unlikely to launch any time soon: Gurman says it’s “near the end of Apple’s 2020s road map.” And like the naysayers in October, he notes that it remains by no means certain that Apple will ever release it.
As for the product’s details, Gurman cautions not to expect the long-awaited hybrid product that many fans hope will one day bridge the gap between the Mac and iPad lines. Rather than “a true combo product,” the folding iPad is “designed through and through as an iPad.” Of course, by then we’ll likely have the first touchscreen Macbook, so things could certainly change.
Author: David Price, Editor, Macworld
David has been writing about technology for well over two decades, and got on board the Apple hype train when covering the original iPhone launch in 2007. He is an enthusiastic Apple Watch evangelist and feels that the HomePod is misunderstood.