Apple is widely expected to release the first iPhone with a foldable display this year. What’s less certain is exactly when it will launch and what Apple will call it.
iPhone Fold, to me, is the clearest shorthand way to reference the foldable iPhone before it has an official name. It also feels like the least likely name to actually be used.
iPhone Fold, you know, the folding one
John Gruber at Daring Fireball dings Fold because the “name is so dumb it’s what Samsung calls their foldables.” I laughed.
“You don’t name a device for what it does, you name it for what it connotes,” he wrote this week. “A good name conveys feeling, not just function.”
Fair, but iPod touch immediately comes to mind.
It was the iPod with a touch screen, marred only by the common shorthand iTouch.
iPhone Fold isn’t a very aspirational name, but it fits the format used by iPod touch, I think. It’s the iPhone with a folding screen.
I joked in the 9to5Mac Slack last September that Apple should call the folding display model iPhone fold (lowercase f, like the lowercase t in iPod touch) as the way to differentiate from a Samsung Galaxy Fold.
In a different era, we’d end up with iFold. For the record, I know that is a bad idea.
iPhone Duo, the one with two screens
My slight objection to iPhone Fold is just that it’s what Samsung has used since 2019.
In the same Slack thread last fall, I landed on iPhone Duo as my logical alternative solution. It’s the iPhone with two screens (and it might cost as much as two iPhones).
Last month, my colleague Ryan Christoffel endorsed iPhone Duo, and this week Gruber arrived at the same name.
I, Zac, like that Duo is a three-letter name, like Air, Pro, Max, and Neo.
iPhone Ultra, err, the folding one?
iPhone Ultra sounds expensive, bulky, powerful, and durable. It works for Apple Watch Ultra, but it sounds like a different product than the foldable iPhone.
There is something fun about iPhone Ultra making a bid for the pre-announcement name though.
Don’t call it iPhone Fold; that’s what Samsung calls their foldable. So call it iPhone Ultra, you know, like Samsung’s non-folding Galaxy Ultra.
Samsung aside (because really, once the product exists, who cares?), I do think iPhone Fold has its merits.
The name lacks ambiguity and people already want an iPhone Fold. There’s brand value before the product even exists.
iPhone Folio, the nicer folding phone
If building off Fold momentum, iPhone Folio is a similar but slightly nicer approach. Apple loves its “Folio” iPad accessories, and the foldable iPhone will invoke a lot of iPad likeness.
If the expected dimensions were more like iPhone Air and less passport-style, I would love iPhone Air Duo. Then we could eventually have iPhone Air 2 Duo, with its similarities to the Intel Core 2 Duo processor in my first Mac.
For now, we’re left with iPhone Fold and iPhone Ultra being used somewhat interchangeably.
It’s a confusing time for folding iPhone rumors. iPhone Duo could prevail, but it doesn’t feel inevitable. And iPhone Folio, well, if it was a good enough name for the iPhone X case from Apple, why not?
Whatever Apple calls the iPhone that folds, it won’t take long for the actual name to take hold. In the meantime, it’s fun to discuss.
What do you think? Fold, Ultra, Duo, Folio, or something else? Share your thoughts in the comments.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
By
