Foldable MacBook Pro delayed to at least 2027
Technical challenges mean that Apple won't be able to launch a foldable MacBook Pro in 2025 as expected, says Ming-Chi Kuo, and it may not be out until late 2027 or 2028.
A generated image of a foldable MacBook concept
It's previously been rumored that Apple was working on an all-screen, foldable MacBook Pro, which would have a 20.3-inch display. According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, though, the the project has been delayed by years -- and the 20.3-inch version has been dropped.
Foldable MacBook survey update - mass production delayed significantly
1. Final display size spec confirmed at 18.8 inches. Apple has canceled the 20.25-inch design.
2. Due to technical challenges with the display and mechanical, the assembly mass production schedule has been https://t.co/mPviHVeK0x-- (Ming-Chi Kuo) (@mingchikuo)
While Kuo says that the final display size has been "confirmed at 18.8 inches," he gives no specific basis for this. He does, though, refer to his supply chain surveys for the rest of his report, in which he casts doubt on a folding iPad.
Kuo previously expected a foldable iPad to be launched in 2024. So did research firm CCS Insight, and seemingly even Samsung was predicting the same.
In his new report, Kuo refers to a prevailing belief that a foldable iPad would launch in 2025. He says there's no indication of that date or of any folding iPad.
He comments that this may "be because some call this foldable MacBook a foldable iPad." That would fit as presumably it will only be the software macOS that will distinguish an all-screen MacBook Pro from an all-screen iPad.
While Apple itself has of course not commented on future products it has filed multiple patents to do with research into folding displays. The most-often rumored result of which, though, is the expected iPhone Fold.
Rumor Score: Possible
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Comments
Perhaps the next lateral - not revolutionary but evolutionary - idea from Apple will be a rollable MacBook. You roll it up and tuck it under your arm like a newspaper.
It's strange how Apple is becoming a lot like Google a great deal of $ and a boatful of engineers totally clueless on the next big thing since Jobs passed and Ivy left. One bone-headed pointless idea after another:
1) Apple Car
2) Apple Vision Pro
3) Foldable Phone
4) Foldable Mac
5) Clothes that interact with the wearer - as long as the wearer is not beset by flatulence - then we have a meltdown.
Actually the best new invention that I have seen is Humane AI Pin. Unfortunately the execution fell a bit short - so short that it's DOA. This is where Apple can step in, buy the company and fold it into Apple Ecosystem and make it a success.
Genius is not learnt but born. And a guy like Jobs happened like a meteor, flew over the Apple heavens and burnt too soon. And now we have a boatful of engineers and a ton of $ and no idea. Google has 253 dead ideas in its graveyard and Apple is not too far behind.
A 'foldable' laptop isn't a foldable tablet and as such will cater to different use cases.
At some point macOS and iPad OS will converge to have a best of both worlds solution.
You can connect an external touchscreen to a Mac and try it out. I have done this for a purpose-built interface running as a full-screen kiosk. Exiting the kiosk UI and interacting with macOS via touch is not great. You can also try touch on macOS with an iPad using Yam Display. Unlike Sidecar, Yam lets you use finger touch when the iPad is being used as a secondary monitor. (Interestingly, Sidecar on iPad does allow the Apple Pencil to be used as a touch interface for macOS).
I believe Apple has said that they aren't interested in OS convergence, but seeing that Apple is a "never say never" kind of company, it may well happen. I think the path to this would be to [continue to] grow iPadOS into a more fully featured OS because it is designed from the ground up to be a touch-first OS. Plus, Apple's control of the iPad App Store would be an advantage for them (even considering current alternate App Store access issues). Modifying the keyboard/mouse based macOS for touch seems like way more work than it's worth, and of course it's not just the OS that needs modification, it's the apps too.
Think broader. The Apple Car project may not have resulted in a drivable car, but it pushed Apple — and technology — forward in the car space, and elsewhere. Apple Vision Pro isn't a pointless idea. It has advanced spatial tech by leaps and bounds.
Or we could do it your way, and never try anything new.
I remember back in the day, before he went out on his own, Ming was the best and most reliable analyst covering Apple. Now? He just makes stuff up to keep his name in the press and the most reliable thing about Ming is that he's almost certainly wrong.
There will be no iPad with macOS. On the software side, macOS currently must run everything from a MacBook Air to a Mac Pro. A Mac Pro with multiple screens would be an ergonomic nightmare if some or all of the monitors are supposed to be touch screens. The menu-driven UI for macOS is not conducive to poking with your finger. The hybrid touch/menu-driven UI that Windows offers for the Surface is a bloated nightmare. Apple is not looking at that as an example of what they should emulate. The iPad's and iPadOS are designed together to have a touch UI. Macs and MacOS are not.
On the hardware side, the reason the iPad is so thin and compact is because it has neither active nor passive air-cooling capability. The Mac Pro is one huge fan-box designed to rapidly dissipate the significant heat generated by processor-intensive macOS workstation functionality. Even the cheapest MacBook Air has passive venting and airflow to cool the processors. An unvented iPad running macOS would be prone to overheating enough that it might even set the lithium batteries on fire, which many people would consider to be a bad thing.
So you know, that's probably the hold out.
Ming Chi Kuo has had a good game going all these years, somehow convincing sites like this to artificially pump up his reputation whenever citing his guesses. Maybe he had a string of good ones once. At this point, however, he just appears to throw things at the wall, change predictions repeatedly, and then cleverly make sure he's credited as having been "right" when his fifth guess is issued just as Apple releases a product and is finally correct.
Foldable MacBook Pro delayed to at least 2027
That's great. Hopefully by 2027 Apple will come to its senses and forget all about this foolishness the same way it abandoned the Apple Car and should have dumped the Vision Pro.
Apple needs to focus on better typing experience on the tinny keyboard and beef up security across all devices. It is good - there's always room for improvement.
Of course, there's no evidence beyond Ming Chi Kuo's extremely dubious (and unsurprisingly delayed) prognostications that Apple is seriously (or even at all) pursuing a folding screen MacBook, so it's probably not necessarily who needs to come to their senses. Of course, as noted by @Drewsaur above, foldable MacBooks have been a mainstay for years. In fact, I'm using one right now. Its foldability is literally the reason for the "Book" in MacBook.