iPhone Ultra could shake up more than foldable phone design — Explained
Apple’s imminent aspect ratio reset has allowed me to hope that we might see the return of genuinely small phones to the market.
The iPhone Ultra has already fundamentally altered the course of the foldable phone format for the better, and it hasn’t even launched yet.
We recently saw the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 pre-empting Apple’s launch with its stouter, book-style foldable shape – and we all like it a lot.
Samsung’s phone won’t be the last to adopt this new wider shape, either. By the look of it, Apple’s influence is set to spread to normal, non-bendy phones too.
Ice Universe
We’ve been hearing rumours concerning the Huawei Pura X View for some time now, and established tipster Ice Universe has just published some official-looking press images.
They show a phone that essentially takes the 3:4 aspect ratio of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 and, according to reports and leaks, the iPhone Ultra, but does away with the foldable aspect.
This results in a squatter, squarer phone. For my money, however, this isn’t the ideal form factor for a passport-style phone.
Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry
Passport to a compact phone future
The tipster speaks of a 6.39-inch 16:10 display, which would seem to suggest that it sports a slightly bigger footprint than a closed Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8. Some on the TA team don’t see the point in this, and I understand where they’re coming from.
I’d like to see a phone of this shape, but far more compact. Something more akin to the front section of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8, and possibly even smaller.
This would make for the most pocket-friendly smartphone in quite some time. Indeed, it could be the first genuinely small phone since the Asus Zenfone 10 in 2023, and before that the iPhone Mini 13 in 2021.
Luke Baker
Those phones evidently didn’t hit home with enough people to make them commercially viable. It’s possible that the problem wasn’t their size, as such, so much as the constricted nature of those skinny displays.
With a much wider yet shortened screen, perhaps messaging and social media content will be able to breathe on a format that doesn’t completely take over our pockets.
Small phones might not be dead after all. They may just be waiting for their final form – and the iPhone Ultra could have indirectly triggered it.
