If Apple launches the first folding iPhone next to the iPhone 18 Pro Max this fall, it won’t just add a new phone. It will force an awkward question: How many “best iPhones” can Apple sell at once?
For years, the iPhone Pro Max has been the undisputed top of the line. Now rumors point to a foldable model, possibly called the iPhone Ultra or the iPhone Fold, arriving at the same time.
Why the iPhone Ultra puts the Pro Max in an awkward spot
Apple has spent years training iPhone buyers to see the Pro Max as the ceiling. It has the biggest screen and the best camera. It’s the phone you buy when you want Apple’s best. Apple doesn’t sell as many of the iPhone Pro and Pro Max as it does the lower-priced standarad models, but the flagship phones’ big price tags — and bigger profit margins — generate tons of revenue.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman predicts that Apple will unveil its first folding iPhone alongside the Pro models this September (although the foldable might ship a little later). When it does, the message to shoppers will be: There’s something above the Pro Max.
That’s uncharted territory for Apple. Now the company must sell people on a better answer — one that costs more, folds in half, and rewrites what “best iPhone” even means.
TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo estimated a starting price north of $2,000, with some projections stretching past $2,300 for larger storage options.
The iPhone 18 Pro Max, by contrast, could start at $1,449 to $1,499 — up to $300 more than its predecessor. Apple would be running two flagship tiers at once, something it has never done before.
Will buyers see the folding iPhone as the future or an expensive experiment?
You can look at Samsung for a preview of how this might play out. The Galaxy Fold has been around for more than half a decade, and Samsung still sells the Galaxy S Ultra right alongside it.
One didn’t kill the other. Foldables carved out their own lane, aimed at power users who want to work on the go without hauling around a tablet.
That’s likely the iPhone Ultra’s real audience, too. It won’t replace the iPhone Pro Max, but will exist alongside it as an option for people who want more screen and don’t mind paying more to get it.
That’s the future part. The catch is that it will always cost more than the Pro Max, full stop.
Foldables have come a long way since 2019, but adoption has still stalled industry-wide. Not every app scales cleanly to a bigger, folding screen, and that awkwardness hasn’t fully gone away.
There are real trade-offs, too. Folding phones aren’t as durable as a solid slab of glass and aluminum. Batteries are smaller, since there’s less room inside a folding chassis.
If the folding iPhone feels genuinely useful on day one despite those trade-offs, it could reset what a premium iPhone looks like. If it feels fragile or gimmicky, it risks becoming Apple’s version of a science project nobody recommends buying.
Can Apple manage two premium flagships without confusing its own buyers?
Apple’s iPhone lineup has always followed a simple price ladder, with each model clearly better than the one below it (although the iPhone Air shook things up a bit last year).
A pricey folding phone above the Pro Max breaks that ladder. It isn’t bigger or faster, but a different shape — and a different use case — entirely. Apple’s marketing team will need to explain why someone should pick one device over the other.
The last thing Apple wants to do is put potential iPhone buyers in a Buridan’s ass type of situation, where they are tempted by two competing models and too paralyzed to make a decision.
There’s a scheduling wrinkle, too. Reports suggest the standard iPhone 18 and iPhone 18e won’t arrive until spring 2027. That leaves the Pro, the Pro Max and the folding iPhone to carry the fall event.
It’s an unusually top-heavy lineup. That puts even more pressure on the folding iPhone to feel essential, not like a distraction from the main show.
Our take: The iPhone Ultra needs to be a category, not a distraction
If Apple pulls this off, the iPhone Ultra won’t cannibalize the Pro Max. It will simply give Apple two different premium buyers to chase.
One group wants the best traditional iPhone — the other wants the most iPhone. That’s a smart way to grow revenue at the top of the lineup without discounting anything below it.
But if the folding iPhone launches with real compromises, thin early supply due to manufacturing constraints, and a price that scares off all but the most devoted Apple fans, the story changes.
The iPhone Ultra might start to look like an expensive experiment sitting next to a phone that already does almost everything well. Apple gets one real shot to make the folding iPhone feel essential. Anything less, and the Pro Max will win by default.
