Apple could be developing a foldable MacBook

It's the question on every tech expert's lips at the moment: 'When is Apple making a folding iPhone?'

Perhaps, though, a better question should be: 'When is Apple making a folding MacBook?'

The foldable market has been growing with more phone makers than ever now hopping aboard the hype train. What was once just a Samsung category now has phones from Huawei, OnePlus and Google, making it even more competitive.

However, it looks like Apple will continue to sit things out, according to a widely-respected analyst.

Taiwan-based tech expert Ming-Chi Kuo took to X (formerly Twitter) this week to say that his sources don't indicate Apple is planning to bring a foldable iPhone or even iPad to market anytime soon, but then he delivered an interesting twist.

Kuo suggests that Apple is planning to make a foldable MacBook, rather than a phone - one that it could start mass producing in 2027.

This is a pretty radical concept, particularly as Kuo says it could have a 20.3-inch display.

That's absolutely huge, especially given how large even the 16-inch MacBook Pro feels today. It also gives us one clue as to what a 'foldable MacBook' might actually look like.

After all, all laptops are already foldable in one sense, but we're not talking about a simple hinge here. Rather, the likelihood is that this version has an actual folding display inside it.

For a 20.3-inch display to make sense, perhaps a portion of the screen might fold over the hinge, on the side with the keyboard. We've seen this in a few other laptops, including the HP Spectre 3-in-1, so it's not a completely foreign idea.

Equally, we could be looking at a single slab of display folding in the middle, one that expects you to use an external keyboard and mouse if you want non-touch controls. This would be much more like a hybrid between the iPad and a MacBook.

There are loads of ways to arrange a large folding display in a laptop, basically, and it's pretty impossible to know what Apple is thinking at this stage.

It won't make any comment on this sort of rumor, after all, until it's fully ready to announce a product that it'll actually sell. That 2027 estimate, meanwhile, only captures what Kuo's sources indicate is the plan right now - there's absolutely no guarantee if it'll actually come to pass.

That's all a way of saying that we shouldn't be surprised Apple is working on design ideas and prototypes for folding devices in the background, but equally shouldn't be shocked if most of them never see the light of day!