Apple’s big “Surprise and Shine” event is almost upon us. One of the big announcements is almost certainly going to be a foldable iPhone, a first for Apple. But what will the phone actually be called?
No one knows yet at the time of publication, but there have been multiple names used regularly by tech media and rumor-mongers over the years. With mere hours to go until Apple shows off its latest wares, let’s go over the most commonly used names for the foldable iPhone, and talk about which one is most likely to be correct.
Foldable iPhone: All the rumored names
On the even of the iPhone launch event, there are three names that most commonly come up in reporting around the unreleased device:
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iPhone Fold
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iPhone Ultra
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iPhone Duo
We asked Mashable readers what they expect the device to be called in our Big Guessing Game, and 27 percent guessed the iPhone Fold, with another five percent guessing The Fold. Another 38 percent predicted the name would be the iPhone Ultra, with the final 30 percent choosing “Something else” as their answer.
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For a long time, iPhone Fold was the name we used in articles about the rumored device. Makes sense, right? It’s an iPhone that folds, after all. However, there are good reasons to explain why Apple would probably not use that name in practice. For starters, Samsung’s foldables are also known as “Fold” devices, such as the Galaxy Z Fold 8. Samsung certainly doesn’t have exclusive rights to use the word “Fold” as a proper noun, but Apple most likely doesn’t want to confuse customers or draw direct comparisons to other devices. That’s why I’m inclined to believe the phone is not called the iPhone Fold.
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For most of the last several months, we’ve been going with “iPhone Ultra” in our reporting. That didn’t come out of nowhere. Well-connected Apple reporter Mark Gurman said on X earlier this year that most Apple employees call it that internally, for example. MacWorld also reported that Apple is working on a new “Ultra” product tier that this phone would theoretically belong to. It really, really seems likely that the device is called iPhone Ultra, without the 18 numbering that the other new iPhones will have. But we’ll have to wait and see.
That said, there have been some vague rumblings online that it might be called the iPhone Duo. It doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of firm reporting suggesting this, but it’s definitely in the air as we get closer to the event. I would not be surprised at all if Apple pulled a minor bait-and-switch and went with Duo after months of basically everyone agreeing that it’s Ultra.
We’ve also seen lots of variations on these themes, with possible names such as the iPhone Ultra Fold, or the iPhone 18 Ultra.
In less than 24 hours, we’ll know for sure, one way or another.
