Apple says, “Fold,” and competitors ask, “How wide?”

Apple will almost certainly release its first foldable iPhone tomorrow, seven years after the Samsung Galaxy Fold first went on sale. And while Apple may have been a few years late to the party, the build-up to this launch proves that new CEO John Ternus has inherited a company that is as powerful as it has ever been.

Tomorrow’s iPhone event will likely be a little different from what we’re used to. First, some iPhone 18 models will likely be delayed—the Pros will be available first, but the regular 18 will presumably be released early next year instead. But leaks and rumors have consistently suggested that Apple will instead bundle the launch of its Pros with the first foldable iPhone, which will likely be short, squat and wide, about the size and shape of a passport.

If you’ve been keeping up with the phone industry this year, this should look a little familiar. Over the past few months, Samsung, Huawei and most recently Xiaomi have released foldable passport-shaped devices, creating a new form factor that looks set to stick around, while Oppo and Honor also plan to have similar products in the works.

You might (rightfully) wonder what Apple has to do with this. After all, Huawei’s Pura X Max was released back in April, Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8 was released in July, and Xiaomi’s 18 Fold was released yesterday. The foldable iPhone hasn’t even been officially announced yet, let alone announced, so how could these Android OEMs copy it?

We’ll never know for sure which manufacturer first came up with the idea of ​​a wide foldable device, but there’s good reason to believe it was Apple. The company has been reportedly working on a foldable iPhone since at least 2017, with rumors of a smaller, wider form factor appearing as early as February 2025. Apple’s massive supply chain, perfected by former CEO Tim Cook, was slow to evolve at the best of times, and by the time leakers learned what was coming next, it was likely industry rivals had too. Samsung in particular has likely known about Apple’s plans for some time now, as it is reportedly the manufacturer of the foldable display panel inside the new iPhone.

Plus, this isn’t the first time Apple has had such an impact. Last year, the iPhone Air sparked a similar early copycat in the form of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge, not to mention other thin and light phones from the likes of Honor, Huawei and Tecno. What about laptops, where March’s MacBook Neo simply offered a range of cheap and often colorful alternatives from the likes of Lenovo, Dell and Acer. I’m not saying that other manufacturers are completely unoriginal, but they know that when Apple creates a new market, you don’t want to miss out on it (with a few exceptions – the lack of copycats suggests that almost anyone can tell that the Vision Pro is unlikely to be a winner).

And there’s little reason to believe that the major Android players were going to force the change themselves. After seven years of foldable Android devices, the market has become fairly predictable, aside from the slow arrival of tri-fold models. Most manufacturers started producing phones in the same Flip and Fold form factors as Samsung, and there were no signs of change until Apple came along. Anyway, Android manufacturers have moved away for that matter, early foldable devices from Oppo and Google were closer in shape to the new wide folds, albeit a little less extreme, but both manufacturers left these designs behind to meet the norms set by Samsung. The main thing that has changed since then is the imminent emergence of Apple.

And Apple’s entry into the foldable device market is important. Despite its decades-long manufacturing history, Counterpoint estimates that foldable devices will make up just 1.6 percent of all smartphone sales in 2025. This is a niche by any measure. But the same report says shipments will grow 20 percent this year, with Apple claiming a 28 percent share after just a few months in the market. Apple’s arrival could bring the category closer to the mainstream, as it has done with others in the past, and Android OEMs are trying to band together to take advantage.

From Apple’s perspective, this launch is significant for another reason: It’s John Ternus’ first hardware release as CEO. Ternus is a hardware guy, and as the company’s former head of hardware engineering, he can take some responsibility for making sure Apple’s products retain the impact they have. The test for Ternus will be maintaining that influence, combining his hardware expertise with Apple’s marketing, supply chain and services to ensure that five to ten years from now Apple will still be able to disrupt entire markets simply by entering them.