The all-screen folding MacBook is coming later, not sooner

Macworld

Apple is taking its sweet time when it comes to releasing its first device with a foldable display. They’re all over the Android phone market and they’re good products–if you don’t mind the crease that appears down the middle of the screen where the display folds. We hear about reports and patents of possible foldable Apple devices, but they haven’t been as substantial as reports from analyst MIng-Chi Kuo, who reported a few months ago that Apple is developing an all-screen, foldable MacBook.

On Wednesday, Kuo posted on X an update, stating that the foldable MacBook’s “mass production delayed significantly.” Apparently, “technical challenges” have caused Apple to push the project out a year or two from the original 2026 timeline. Apple has also settled on an 18.8-inch design, scrapping the larger 20.25-inch device.

Foldable MacBook survey update – mass production delayed significantly1. 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— 郭明錤 (Ming-Chi Kuo) (@mingchikuo) August 22, 2024

Kuo also states that Apple was thinking about doing a foldable iPad, but has decided against it because such a device has “no visibility”–in other words, there’s no demand for it. Kuo thinks that a foldable MacBook would make a foldable iPad redundant.

The concept of a foldable MacBook is intriguing. Such a device would not have a hardware keyboard, instead relying on a software keyboard that appears on-screen (think of a super-sized iPhone software keyboard), and it would in turn require a touchscreen UI to make up for the lack of a trackpad. Essentially, it would be a large, foldable iPad, but running macOS.

Kuo relies on supply-chain data to form his conclusions; he doesn’t have information about Apple’s software development. So one idea that can be drawn from Kuo’s foldable MacBook reports is that Apple is working on a version of macOS with touchscreen UI elements.

The idea of macOS with a touch UI has been bandied about for some time, and Apple was even granted a patent earlier this year for a tablet-like device that runs an OS that looks a lot like macOS. But Apple has never acknowledged that it is working on such a thing. If you put two and two together, though, it seems like they are.

What we do know (or, at least, we’re pretty sure we know) is that Apple plans to release M4-based, not-all-screen-but-still-foldable MacBook Pros this fall. Learn more about Apple’s M4 Mac release cycle and catch up on the latest M4 MacBook Pro rumors.