A wide, foldable iPhone dummy appears amid delay rumors

We may be getting our first good look at what the strangely wide iPhone Fold looks like, after leaker and journalist Sonny Dickson shared images of what he says is a mock unit of the foldable device, alongside similar models of the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max. The apparent design leak comes as early engineering tests of the foldable device reportedly suffered production issues which could cause it to ship months later than other iPhones this year.

Dixon, who has a good track record of obtaining accurate mockups of Apple and Samsung phones that case makers use to test and design their products, Shared photos For the folding unit on Bluesky this morning. It shows the phone from both sides, though the interior of the dummy reveals little about the potential design, not even the potential layout of the selfie camera or Face ID sensors. The outside is more informative, showing off two rear cameras side-by-side on a raised pill-shaped island extending about two-thirds of the way across the phone’s unusually wide body.

Dixon doesn’t provide exact measurements for the phantom unit, though it appears squatter and wider than any book-style foldable we’ve seen so far. It is the closest in style Google’s first generation Pixel Foldalthough it seems wider than this phone. This choice may seem strange, but Samsung is also rumored to be working on a new phone The “Wide Fold” version of the foldable version It will launch later this year, suggesting that this form factor may have legs.

The question may be which company gets there first. It was Apple widely expected To launch the first foldable iPhone alongside the 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max at the usual iPhone launch event in September, with the basic iPhone 18 to follow in 2027, but this timeline may be in doubt. Nikki Asia Reports Early production runs faced “engineering challenges” that took longer than expected to resolve, which “could delay the first shipment by months.”

“Apple and its supply chain are working under a compressed schedule, and current solutions are not sufficient to fully solve the engineering challenges,” one of the sources said. Nikki. “More time is needed.” The reported delay echoes A Latest prediction by BloombergMark Gorman The foldable device will ship sometime after the release of the two iPhone Pro devices, even if it is revealed alongside them.