Apple appears to be laying the groundwork for a foldable iPhone in iOS 27, with new benchmarks discovered in operating system frameworks and a notable emphasis on flexible app layouts during this year’s State of the Union platforms.
During the State of the Platform Union session, Apple asked developers to move away from designing apps for specific devices and fixed orientations, and instead target what it described as “a dynamic range of sizes and aspect ratios.” The framing seems to go beyond the displayed context of the iPhone Mirroring and the iPad.
Apple used the session to introduce support for resizable iOS apps in iPhone Mirroring and on the ‌iPad‌. Developers who rebuild with the latest SDK will have their apps automatically enabled for resizable, Apple said, with SwiftUI apps that already use the scene lifecycle and standard framework support for basic resizing considered “well on track to support full resizing.”
A new resizable iOS simulator and previews in Xcode were also announced, allowing developers to test layouts on a range of screen sizes and aspect ratios. Apple said it also provides a skill to coding agents to help them identify and resolve common resizing issues.
The instructions effectively ask developers to treat each iOS app as something that might need to be redistributed across a wide variety of form factors, which is a requirement that makes a lot more sense if a future iPhone is capable of opening on a much larger internal display.
As if that wasn’t enough for the upcoming foldable iPhone, X user @samhenrigold spotted two strings in ‌iOS 27‌’s frames that point directly to the foldable hardware: “foldState” and “angleDegrees.” A third discovery, a new key that returns the total number of integrated displays on a device, is further indication that Apple is preparing the software stack for a device capable of featuring more than one integrated display.
The foldable iPhone, widely referred to as “iPhone Ultra”, is expected to be announced in September 2026 alongside the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro‌ Max, with a book-style design including an approximately 7.8-inch inner screen and a 5.5-inch cover screen. Other key rumored features include Touch ID instead of Face ID, a titanium frame and Liquid Metal hinge, dual rear cameras, the A20 chip, and the C2 modem. The device is expected to start at over $2,000, making it the most expensive iPhone ever.
