Apple is looking for its next cash cow. But Tim Cook won’t need to look far because, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the company is working on reinventing the iPhone with not one, not two, but three models.
The first of the three iPhones will come next month at Apple’s annual fall launch event. The long-rumored “iPhone 17 Air” will reportedly be Apple’s thinnest phone ever—even skinnier than the iPhone 6, which sparked “bendgate” back in 2014. The 17 Air is expected to replace the iPhone 16 Plus, and Gurman claims with confidence that the 17 Air will come in “light blue,” which corroborates leaked dummy models. The 17 Air will also reportedly use an Apple-made modem—possibly the same C1 chip used in the iPhone 16e—and come with a single rear camera and support eSIM only.
The second revolutionary iPhone will be a book-style foldable, similar to the style of Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Google’s Pixel 10 Pro Fold. Gurman again says the foldable iPhone will launch in 2026. He shared new details for the device that haven’t been previously reported, including that it’ll reportedly use Touch ID instead of Face ID, have four cameras, and not include a physical SIM card slot. It might also use a second-gen version of Apple’s own modem—dubbed the “C2” chip and the screen will use “in-cell” display technology, which “should help make the crease less obvious and improve touch accuracy.”
Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo previously said that the foldable iPhone would come with a crease-free design. The crease, aka the fold running down a flexible display when it’s opened and closed, is something no phonemaker has been able to eliminate. Leading foldable phone makers like Samsung, Honor, and Motorola have reduced the crease on their bending devices, but the crease has always remained (and still deepens with extended use after the first days). Having reviewed every generation of Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold since 2019, I’m skeptical Apple can do what others haven’t, but I’d love to be proven wrong. That being said, I’ve been totally in love with the Z Fold 7’s thinness and lightness that I’ve accepted that it has a crease, the same way I accepted the notch on the iPhone X and the Dynamic Island on the current iPhones. Repeat after me: there is no perfect phone and there never has been. Phone designs have always come with tradeoffs.
And the third iPhone, which Gurman says won’t be coming until 2027—in time for the iPhone’s 20th anniversary—will finally revamp the current glass-and-flat-metal-sides design that Apple introduced with the iPhone 12 series in 2020. He says the “iPhone 2020” will have “curved glass edges all around,” which will be a hardware match to the glossy, reflective, and animated Liquid Glass interface that arrives with iOS 26.
If Gurman’s crystal ball is working properly, Tim Cook is cooking up some new iPhones to help allay concerns that the company has lost its North Star. Fumbles with AI—Apple Intelligence and the revamped Siri have been major stains—and mild refreshes to its product lineup, not to mention a slew of its design team defecting to former Apple Chief Design Officer Jony Ive’s LoveFrom firm, have made consumers question whether Apple’s time as a technology tastemaker is up. A skinny iPhone 17 Air is a start, but a foldable iPhone, followed by an all-glass iPhone, could get people lining up at Apple Stores in a way they haven’t since before covid-19.
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