Render of a possible future – and slimmer – iPhone
Apple’s John Ternus is excited about the iPhone 17 and beyond, saying in a leaked memo that the company is working on the most ambitious lineup the company has ever worked on. This is why.
Even Tim Cook has noticed that he’s overused the phrase “this is the best iPhone we’ve ever made,” and seems to have dialed that back. But Apple executives still tend to lean on their hyperbole API, and now it appears they’re even doing so in internal memos.
As noted by BloombergApple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, John Ternus, has stirred up the troops. The planned next iPhones are, he said, the “most ambitious in the history of the product.”
It wasn’t just a random internal message during a conversation about today’s menu at Cafe Macs in Apple Park. Instead, it was part of an announcement about that iPhone future.
In addition to the iPhone, Ternus probably worked on the M4 Mac launches that are now expected soon. But in the memo he also announced the promotion of three people to vice president status.
One of them is Rich Dinh, senior director of product design, whose previous work includes the new camera control button.
A view of an iPhone Fold
Dinh is now vice president of product design, apparently specifically for the iPhone. His new role isn’t yet listed on Apple’s leadership page, but it hasn’t been updated to show that Carol Surface is also leaving.
What Ternus could mean
Despite the fact that the iPhone is now 17 years old, it’s truly true that each year’s model is the best Apple has ever made. There may not be something fundamentally new every time, but there is always something that we haven’t had yet – and that we wouldn’t give up now.
There’s an argument that today’s iPhone is actually the same as the 2007 original, but only because it’s both rectangular and flat glass. For the first time, it is now possible that this basic shape will soon change, or at least slightly.
If so, perhaps it will just be a case of Apple doing what it tends to do. That’s to be late to the party, but be the one who brings all the wine.
Prepare for clamshell shock
So it may have been five years since Samsung first released a foldable phone, but Apple is undoubtedly working on it. At least internally.
A rendering of what the iPhone Fold could look like
However, there is quite a bit of doubt as to whether Apple will ever release it. With any other company in the world, the sheer weight of patent evidence we have would guarantee that they would bring a foldable phone to market.
Apple doesn’t enjoy canceling projects, and Dinh would undoubtedly face a rebuke from Tim Cook if he tried to drop the iPhone fold. But the fact is that Apple has form in this; it could very well drop the iPhone fold if it decides it won’t be a winner.
That may be why the rumors have faded a bit in recent years. Instead of an iPhone fold, there is a subtly different flip iPhone.
And then the path to an iPhone flip could be via Apple practicing to make a thinner model. Apple certainly can’t make a folded iPhone flip much wider than a current, regular iPhone.
So before we see a flip or foldable iPhone, we might see something else. In concrete terms, 2025 could bring us the iPhone 17 Slim.
Even the name of that might as well be a guess since so little is known and only slightly more rumored. But it’s possible that the iPhone 17 range will drop the Plus model and get this Slim model instead.
It’s not even clear if this means the Slim will take the Plus’ place in the lineup. It could potentially end up at the top of the range and turn out to be the long-rumored iPhone Ultra.
To top the iPhone 17 Pro Max, the slim model would certainly have to offer similar specs. The only rumor so far is that it would have a 6.6-inch screen, which would put it below the 6.7-inch of the iPhone 16 Plus.
Define exciting
However Ternus’ memo leaked, unfortunately there was no attachment. There is absolutely no evidence for what he meant by “most ambitious” or “an exciting future.”
The entire text is also not available for inspection. We don’t doubt it exists, given Gurman’s reputation, but it’s missing a lot of context that can be gleaned.
Either way, the rumors of a foldable, flip, slim iPhone are so plentiful that even without several patents, it seems likely one will happen. Yet it may still be a case of wishful thinking.
And it could also be a case of a lack of imagination, it could be that Apple has something that no one expects. It could be that Apple has a device in mind that no one asked for, no one predicted, but everyone seems to want it when it’s out.
