Is Apple's iPhone Ultra Fold Really Thinner Than A Pencil? We Did The Math

Apple's first foldable iPhone may be just 4.5mm thin when open, slimmer than any iPhone ever made. But hitting that number came with some surprising trade-offs.

Apple's foldable iPhone may arrive in September 2026.

Source : ABPLIVE AI

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Key points generated by AI, verified by newsroom

• Apple's upcoming foldable iPhone targets extreme thinness at 4.5mm unfolded.
• To achieve thinness, Face ID and telephoto camera were removed.
• Near-creaseless display technology and 2nm chip power the device.

iPhone Ultra Fold Leaks: Apple is preparing to enter the foldable phone market, and early details paint a picture of a device built around one core obsession: thinness. Multiple credible sources confirm that the device, widely referred to as the iPhone Ultra, though Apple has not confirmed that name, will measure approximately 4.5mm when unfolded and between 9mm and 9.5mm when folded.

That makes it thinner than any iPhone currently on sale when open. The starting price is expected to be above $2,000, and a September launch remains the target.

How Thin Is 4.5mm, Really?

To put the 4.5mm figure into perspective, a standard pencil is usually 7mm thick, Apple's current thinnest product is the 13-inch iPad Pro at 5.1mm. The iPhone Air, Apple's recent slim-focused phone, sits at 5.6mm. The foldable would be thinner than both when open, which is a significant engineering achievement for a device that also folds shut.

There is one honest asterisk here. Case schematics show a protruding square camera plateau on the back that adds roughly 4.5mm at its highest point, pushing the maximum local thickness to around 9mm at the lens. So the body is genuinely 4.5mm, but the back is not completely flat.

As one analysis put it: "At 4.5mm unfolded, the iPhone Ultra would be thinner than the iPhone Air, thinner than the 13-inch iPad Pro, and thinner than any iPhone Apple has ever sold. That's not a spec tweak, that's a structural statement about what Apple thinks a foldable should feel like."

What Apple Had To Give Up To Hit That Number

Getting to 4.5mm required real trade-offs. Face ID is out, replaced by Touch ID in the power button, the same approach used on iPads. The telephoto camera is also gone, leaving two 48MP sensors handling main and ultra-wide duties. Internal MagSafe magnets may be absent as well, with dummy unit analysis showing no magnets in their usual position. Cases with built-in magnets are already in production, suggesting Apple may be moving that function outside the phone entirely.

On the display side, Samsung Display developed a near-creaseless panel with a 0.15mm crease depth and a crease angle under 2.5 degrees, specifically for this device. That is well below the visible crease found on current foldables, including Samsung's own Galaxy Z Fold 7.

The device runs a 7.76-inch inner OLED display and a 5.49-inch outer display, both in a 4:3 aspect ratio, powered by the A20 Pro chip built on TSMC's 2nm process with 12GB RAM.

Mass production, originally planned for June 2026, has slipped to August. That leaves a narrow window for a September launch. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has flagged potential supply shortages that could extend into 2027, so early availability is expected to be tight.

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