I’ve generally ignored reports that Apple is quietly working on a folding iPhone, because, well, why wouldn’t they be? The form factor is clearly popular with many people—Samsung’s foldables are now onto their sixth generation—and the R&D department at a company of Apple’s size will naturally be playing with a lot of speculative ideas at any given time. Many won’t go anywhere.
But now it does seem like the folding iPhone will be a thing. The Information reported yesterday that the idea has an internal codename (“V68”) and is in “development with suppliers,” with a view to a potential launch in 2026. Apparently Apple is still trying to make its design thinner, and to flatten the crease in the folding screen.
DigiTimes reports a similar timeline, citing Korean media as saying the device will fold top-down like an old-school flip-phone, rather than sideways like, say, the Google Pixel Fold.
Speaking as someone who once scoffed at the idea of folding smartphones, before grudgingly relenting on the basis of demonstrable consumer demand, I’m pretty interested to see what Apple comes up with here.
The design seems to be particularly popular in China, which is a key market for Apple, but also the home country of many rivals in this space. Brands like Honor and Xiaomi are racing to bring out ever-slimmer takes on the category, in the process eating into Samsung’s market share. Their foldables are getting cheaper, too, so Apple will have to deliver something pretty special as a late entrant.
Mostly, I’m just keen to see more innovation from Apple. Perhaps there’s only so much you can do with a glass rectangle, but the iPhone design hasn’t seen any big changes since the iPhone X came out in 2017, getting rid of the decade-old physical home button. Adding fancy AI features this year will be a meaningful change to iOS, but let’s see what’s possible on the hardware side, shall we? Hopefully it won’t just be an us-too entry into a field that’s already getting fairly crowded.
Apple didn’t respond to a request for comment on this week’s reports.
Meanwhile, in other Apple news, the Spanish Competition Authority just opened a probe into the allegedly “unfair trading conditions” that Apple imposes on developers who want to get apps into its App Store.
The antitrust regulator is pretty vague about its specific concerns, and Apple says it would like to understand what the problem is. But I’d be surprised if we’re not talking about similar issues to those being investigated by the European Commission—namely, developers’ inability to freely steer customers from iOS to external platforms where they can offer cheaper deals, and the new fees that Apple is demanding if developers want to offer their apps through third-party iOS app stores.
Just like the Commission, the Spanish regulator could hit Apple with a fine of up to 10% of global annual revenue if it decides the company is egregiously breaking competition law, so it’s probably worth keeping an eye on this case.
More news below.
David Meyer
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NEWSWORTHY
CrowdStrike explains IT catastrophe. The cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike says it has figured out what went wrong with its software update last week, crashing millions of Windows computers around the world. As CrowdStrike’s preliminary post incident review explains, the culprit was an undetected bug in the “content validator” that is supposed to find flaws in the updates that the company sends to its Falcon Sensor software to tell it about new kinds of attacks. “Problematic content” in an update went undetected, resulting in “an out-of-bounds memory read triggering an exception,” CrowdStrike said. “This unexpected exception could not be gracefully handled, resulting in a Windows operating system crash.”
Waymo cash injection. Alphabet is putting another $5 billion into Waymo, its robo-taxi unit. As TechCrunch reports, CFO Ruth Porat yesterday called this a “multi-year investment” and said it was in line with previous investments into the business. Meanwhile, Waymo—which currently offers self-driving, modified Jaguars—has started testing custom-built Zeekr robo-taxis on San Francisco roads. It says the new vehicles will allow autonomous services in colder cities.
KOSA heads for Senate vote. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has promised a procedural vote on the Kids Online Safety Act as soon as tomorrow. As The Verge notes, the bill’s Senate success would leave the House with just one week to consider the law before the August recess arrives. KOSA is supposed to protect young internet users by forcing social media companies to prevent harmful content and let kids disable addictive features and get strong privacy-protecting features by default. But the bill has plenty of critics, with some asking why adults don’t get the same protections, and others warning of the potential censorship of LGBTQ content.
SIGNIFICANT FIGURES
77%
—The proportion of employees who say AI tools have added to their workload and decreased their productivity, according to a survey by work marketplace Upwork. The survey found that 96% of C-suite leaders thought AI tools would boost productivity, but many workers find themselves spending time reviewing or moderating the output of generative AI.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Meta’s new LLama model could be a game changer—but there are a lot of unknowns, by Jeremy Kahn
FTC orders 8 companies to hand over information on ‘surveillance pricing’ practices, by the Associated Press
Data centers and ads boost Alphabet’s profits as it faces down AI rivals, by Bloomberg
Tesla reports back-to-back profit slumps, by Bloomberg
Elon Musk says a Trump presidency ‘would be devastating’ to Tesla’s competitors, by Amanda Gerut
Elon Musk denies reported $45 million a month pledge to Trump, says he doesn’t ‘subscribe to cult of personality’, by Eva Roytburg
Netflix has 80 games in development, will release one per month, by Chris Morris
BEFORE YOU GO
Olympic spy drones. New Zealand has complained to the International Olympic Committee about a “support staff member” of the Canadian soccer team flying a drone over their training session in the French city of Saint-Étienne, ESPN reports. The Canadians have apologized and launched an investigation, and French authorities have reportedly arrested the individual concerned. The Olympics begin Friday.
