Apple's Foldable iPad Plans Sound Huge (And Expensive)

Apple may not share any official enthusiasm around foldable iPhones, but the company is reportedly cooking up an ambitious idea for foldable tablets. According to Bloomberg, the company is working on a "giant, iPad-like foldable device."

The report, which comes courtesy of the ever-reliable Mark Gurman, mentions that the device is large enough that even in folded state, it looks like an iPad Pro. To refresh your memory, the current generation iPad Pro comes in two sizes — 11-inch and 13-inch. Apple's massive iPad iteration could use a foldable screen that measures over 18 inches diagonally.

That's the most expansive screen we have seen on a commercially available tablet in the segment. Samsung's biggest slab yet, the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra, comes equipped with a 14.6-inch OLED screen, for comparison. Apple's massive foldable iPad will reportedly hit the shelves somewhere around 2028.

As expected, it won't really be cheap. Right now, the only devices that offer a foldable screen that large fall in the laptop segment. HP and Asus have made laptops with a large flexible panel, but they start at $3,500. Apple's take on the idea won't exactly be affordable if the competition and the current state of the display supply chain are anything to go by.

Why exactly is Apple making such a massive tablet? The Bloomberg report cites the demand trajectory of an audience that needs a large screen for gaming, serious work, and of course, an immersive video-watching experience.

Right now, the biggest challenge for foldable devices is not the cost, as is clearly evident from clamshell foldable phones that cost as little as $500. The core challenge is getting rid of the crease across the folding seam in the middle. The likes of Samsung have made progress over half a dozen iterations, but the crease is still there.

Apple may have addressed the crease conundrum for its foldable behemoth. "Prototypes of this new product within Apple's industrial design group have a nearly invisible crease," says the Bloomberg report. "But it's too early to tell if Apple will get rid of it altogether."

The company is reportedly chasing the vision of a "single, uninterrupted piece of glass." Not too long ago, we also came across a few patents that detailed schematics of an Apple computing device with a curved glass design, and it also imagined a machine with seamlessly curved glass without any crease.

Another piece of the puzzle is the operating system, which is where things get tricky. The foldable iPad would still run iPadOS, which is a far cry from the computing versatility that macOS offers. In a nutshell, this isn't going to be the dream Mac-iPad hybrid that Apple fanboys have been demanding for years.

Bloomberg's report hints that Apple's device could cost north of $2,000, which isn't unexpected given the sticker price of current-gen foldable phones. It would be interesting to see what the marketing pitch is going to be for a giant foldable slate, but without any standout software chops, a large-screen folding iPad won't merit a steep asking price.

It doesn't make a lot of sense to pay that kind of money for a product that underwhelms with its software, despite shining bright courtesy of cutting-edge hardware. The Apple Vision Pro, a $3,500 headset, is the best example of Apple misfiring with wildly innovative hardware, and barely any standout experiences to warrant that sticker shock. A giant foldable, given the current status of iPadOS, doesn't sound too appealing either. 

It's also worth pointing out that this is an in-development project we are talking about, so there's always the chance of some technical snags that put the project on cold ice. There's certainly some precedent for that. Remember the Microsoft Surface Neo, which chased a similar large-screen computing nirvana? Well, following a splashy reveal, it never made it to the market.