Is your gadget fat and foldy? You might have a better choice next year as Apple treads its long-traveledpath of not doing things first, but doing them better. Thats right, a folding iPhone is now scheduled for 2026.Folding devices are becoming increasingly popular. Even the Appleholic has spent time fondling a friends Samsung Fold, and Im impressed by the size of the display and the dual use the device delivers in its folded and unfolded states.While it is the thinnest folding device you can get right now, its pretty thick even the 6.3-in. (folded) Galaxy Z Fold 6 comes in at just under a half inch thick when folded, and weighs 8 ounces. In contrast the 6.3-in. iPhone 16 Pro is 0.3 inches thin and weighs 7 ounces, while the 6.9-in. Pro Max is just as thin and weighs 8 ounces. The benefit is that you get a 7.6-in. screen when youunfold the Fold. Thats a lot of extra display, so long as the crease doesnt get too obvious after use.Can Apple do it better?Perhaps. Apple has been exploring folding phones forat least 10 years, filing its first relevant patents in or before 2014.Not first, but bestBloombergs Mark Gurman tells us Apple plans to introduce an iPhone Fold in 2026. That report follows a similar claim from theWall Street Journal, which also posited introduction of a 19-in. folding iPad.The Informationlast year claimed prototyping of the device had already begun. And analystMing-Chi Kuoreckons Apple is building a device with a humongous near 8-in. display and an eSIM. Other speculation claims the display will be onlyslightly larger than Samsungs, while noted display analyst Ross Youngsuggests it will be larger.The weight of all this accumulated speculation comes on top of the anticipated introduction of a much thinner iPhone Air later this year. Widely seen as a testing ground for new tech, that product is expected to be a significantly thinner iPhone, with the slim frame enabled by two key Apple technologies which also make foldables possible.Apple Silicon:The companys chips are high-performing, battery-sipping, low heat powerhouses capable of being squeezed into smaller devices such as iPhone 16e, or being maxxed out for larger systems, such as the M4 series chips in desktop Macs.Apples modem:Apple has designed its own 5G modem. In line with Apples broader silicon development, this should be optimized for use on Apples systems, meaning you can expect better battery life when networking. We recently learned Apple is also bringing Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chips in-house, which means that by next year we could see one integrated component handle all these tasks.Together, these two improvements mean Apple should be able to create thinner iPhones at no sacrifice in performance or energy consumption. Together, they suggest the company will be able to deliver an ultra-thin iPhone Air this year, followed by a similarly thin iPhone Fold next year.If it folds, will it flip?Apple Silicon is once again the wind beneath Apples wings in this design. The processors Apple makes are suitable for a wide array of deployments and most certainly enable the companys product designers to imagine whole new product families. How much processor do you need to drive an autonomous home help robot, after all? To what extent can autonomous Apple home devices exploit technologies Apple developed when it was driving toward developing a car? Kuo haspreviously claimedApple is working on domestic robots, but it really doesnt matter whether that is true what is true is that ownership of a world leading processor architecture means Apple can look at putting its software in all kinds of things.Returning to the iPhone, it means we can anticipate a folding device with the kind of performance we expect from any iPhone and a battery life similar to the 23 hours video playback were told to expect from the latest Fold. (The iPhone 16 Pro promises 27 hours video.)Gurman also tells us Apple has been sweating to create a fold mechanism that isnt visible when unfolded and does not deteriorate in normal use. If Apple has achieved that, then it can rightfully claim to have bought something better to market. That is not to say that Samsung, with its own competitive moat built around ownership of the means of production, isnt already on the same track. Finally, of course, once you figure out how to make a high quality iPhone that folds, youve probably also figured out how to make one that flips. On which, I imagine, well hear more later down the line.You can follow me on social media! Join me onBlueSky, LinkedIn,Mastodon, andMeWe.