IOS 27 May Have Confirmed the Arrival of Apple’s First Foldable IPhone.
iOS 27 has been in beta testing since WWDC (though Apple only opened the public beta last week ), and since then, testers have been making new discoveries. These are usually features Apple didn’t announce as part of these updates, such as the new hidden Siri AI menu in macOS 27. However, the latest iOS 27 beta may reveal a new product Apple hasn’t yet announced: the rumored foldable iPhone Ultra .
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The fourth developer beta of iOS 27 may have just unveiled the iPhone Ultra.
After reviewing the fourth developer beta of macOS 27, Macworld discovered something quite interesting : the publication identified strings in the OS code related to battery health that refer to iPhones with multiple internal batteries. These strings contain phrases like “The batteries in this iPhone are functioning as expected” and “The batteries in this iPhone have significantly degraded,” instead of specifying “the batteries in this iPhone.” Macworld even discovered that one of the strings indicates that “one of the batteries” may be counterfeit, foreshadowing a case where a user replaces only one of their iPhone’s batteries. Apple has been producing iPhones for nearly 20 years, and all of them have shipped with a single internal battery. Multiple batteries in a single iPhone would indeed be something new.
While such designs don’t make sense for Apple’s current iPhones, they would be useful for future foldable devices. While the exact specifications of this future product are unknown, Apple could theoretically place a battery on each side of the foldable iPhone to power the additional screen area. This is how batteries are designed in other foldable smartphones, such as the Galaxy Z Fold 7. Samsung splits the batteries in two, effectively placing two smaller batteries on each side of the device.
Macworld reports that the first iOS 27 beta mentioned “angle detection” and “fold state,” another indication that Apple is preparing this update for foldable devices as well. Will the company actually release its own foldable smartphone this fall? There are no guarantees, but all signs point in that direction. Personally, I’d prefer to see an “iPhone Flip,” but I’m curious to see how Apple presents a foldable smartphone (if it happens at all).