After years of rumours and subtle hint from secretive CEO Tim Cook, Apple’s long-awaited Vision Pro is now available to buy in Apple Stores across the United States. A launch in more countries, including the UK and mainland Europe, is tipped for late 2024.
The sleek aluminium headset, which starts from $3,499, is the first product that embraces what Apple calls “Spatial Computing”, combining elements of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) to bring windowed applications and immersive experiences into your surroundings.
Vision Pro introduces a number of innovations, including high-resolution micro-OLED displays, where each pixel measures just 7.5 μm, roughly the size of a human red blood cell. It also tracks your eye movements to select from the menus on-screen and uses a pinch gesture to mimic a mouse-click.
In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Tim Cook spoke about the long development process of the Apple Vision Pro inside the Californian headquarters. He refers to an early iteration of the headset as “the monster,” hinting at the tremendous amount of engineering work that was done behind-the-scenes to get the Vision Pro down to its current 650g weight.
Apple Vision Pro lets wearers place windowed applications, games, and movies in the real-world, with digital elements staying in place as you move. It can be controlled with gestures, voice controls with AI assistant Siri, or a traditional mouse and keyboard
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Now that Apple’s spatial computer has transitioned from top-secret research labs to store shelves, attention has turned to what could be next to emerge from the shadows.
The Vanity Fair feature references another product long-rumoured to be in the works at the company: “[Cook] strolls past restricted rooms where foldable iPhones and MacBooks with retractable keyboards or transparent televisions were dreamed up. Where these devices, almost all of which will never leave this building, are stored in locked Pelican cases inside locked cupboards.”
Yes, a foldable version of the iPhone has been rumoured since Samsung kickstarted the category with the launch of its Galaxy Fold back in September 2019. Five iterations of the Galaxy Fold later, Samsung now offers a water-resistant design, a more durable hinge mechanism rated for 200,000 folds, and an edge-to-edge design on the front- and internal foldable screen.
It also launched the Galaxy Z Flip, which trades the paperback-like opening of the Galaxy Z Fold for a clamshell design, like the flip phones that dominated store shelves in the late 90s and early 00s.
Google, Motorola, OnePlus, Honor, and Huawei have all followed in Samsung’s wake with foldable efforts of their own. According to IDC, a total of 21 million foldable handsets were shipped by all brands in 2023, with that figure estimated to more than double to 48.1 million by 2027.
Samsung advertising campaigns, like the one above, have helped the brand dominate the foldable market with its Galaxy Z Fold and Galaxy Z Flip models
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That’s a lot of foldables, but it’s worth noting that even 48.1 million is a drop in the ocean compared with the 1.17 billion smartphones that shipped worldwide last year.
According to sources speaking with The Information, Apple has been toying with two possible form-factors for a folding iPhone, one that unfurls like a book (Galaxy Z Fold) and one that flips open (Galaxy Z Flip), for several years now but has settled on the latter as the preferred design.
Whispers from the depths of the secretive R&D labs suggest Apple engineers favour an 8-inch folding display. That’s much larger than the 6.7-inch main screen found on Samsung’s Galaxy S Flip 5 and the 6.9-inch one used by Motorola in its reimagined Razr.
For comparison, the largest display currently available on an iPhone is 6.7-inches found on the iPhone 15 Plus and iPhone 15 Pro Max. If the rumours are true, a foldable iPhone would need a much wider footprint than the competition. Sources speaking to The Information say the prototype looks identical to an iPad Mini, which has an 8.3-inch screen, when it’s unfolded.
Sources with knowledge of the latest foldable iPhone prototype claim that it resembles the iPad mini, pictured above, which has an 8.1-inch screen
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As we’ve seen with tablets, smartwatches, Bluetooth earbuds, and most recently, with mixed-reality headsets, Apple is almost always slow to embrace new product categories. While other brands crash-test new form-factors and emerging technologies in public, Apple prefers to work in the shadows and only make an announcement when its engineers believe it has a fresh take.
With Vision Pro, that’s the concept of “Spatial Computing” and its immersive Minority Report-like Spatial Videos. As for what that means for a foldable iPhone, nobody knows.
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However, some speculate that eliminating the crease in folding screens, coupled with the draw of Apple’s iOS software and ecosystem of devices, could be enough to shake-up the market and challenge Samsung’s impressive 60-70% share of foldables sold worldwide.
For now, you’ll just have to wait until you hear CEO Tim Cook say he has “one more thing...” to announce in an Apple keynote.
