A wild, wide foldable iPhone dummy emerges amid rumors of a delay

We might have our first good look at the shape of the oddly wide iPhone Fold, after leaker and journalist Sonny Dickson shared photos of what he says is a dummy unit of the foldable, alongside similar models of the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max. The apparent design leak comes as it’s reported that early engineering tests of the foldable have suffered from production problems which may cause it to ship months later than other iPhones this year.

Dickson, who has a good track record for sourcing accurate dummy models of Apple and Samsung phones used by case makers to test and design their products, shared images of the foldable unit on Bluesky this morning. It shows the phone from both sides, though the inside of the dummy reveals little about the likely design, not even the possible layout of a selfie camera or Face ID sensors. The outside is more informative, showing two rear cameras side-by-side in a raised pill-shaped island that stretches about two thirds of the way across the phone’s unusually wide body.

Dickson doesn’t provide exact measurements for the dummy unit, though it looks squatter and wider than any book-style foldable we’ve seen so far. It’s closest in style to Google’s first-gen Pixel Fold, though appears wider still than that phone. That choice might seem odd, but Samsung is also rumored to be working on a “Wide Fold” variant of its foldable to launch later this year, suggesting this form factor may have legs.

The question might be which company gets there first. Apple has been widely expected to launch the first foldable iPhone alongside the 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max at its usual iPhone launch event in September, with the base iPhone 18 to follow in 2027, but that schedule may be in doubt. Nikkei Asia reports that early production runs have encountered “engineering challenges” that are taking longer to resolve than expected, which “could delay the first shipment by months.”

“Apple and the supply chain are working under a pressured timeline and the current solutions are not enough to completely solve the engineering challenges,” one source told Nikkei. “More time is needed.” The reported delay echoes a recent prediction by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman that the foldable will ship some time after the two Pro iPhones, even if it’s revealed alongside them.