Apple left some major folding iPhone hints in the iOS 27 code

Rumors that Apple is working on a foldable device have been swirling all year, with all of them pointing to the launch of the Phone Ultra later this year. And although Apple has never said a word about it, iOS 27 has just given us a major clue that this new foldable device is indeed coming later this year.

After digging through parts of the iOS 27 code following WWDC 2026, developer Sam Henri Gold discovered new internal references tied to device folding states. Macworld was able to independently confirm the findings, and some of these references are extremely difficult to explain away as anything other than foldable device support.

Specifically, the code includes references to “foldState” and “angleDegrees,” internal status values apparently designed to tell apps whether a device is folded and at what angle. That may not sound particularly exciting at first glance. But here’s the important detail: no current Apple device uses these states.

To add fuel to the fire, Macworld also found internal code suggesting that Apple has been testing a device that features both Dynamic Island and Touch ID – a combination that doesn’t exist in any device today. 

Given these references, it’s clear that iOS 27 is ready for a new category of device. One that likely features a foldable display.

Apple is clearly preparing apps for foldable displays

During the Platforms State of the Union session at WWDC, Apple repeatedly encouraged developers to stop designing apps around fixed screen assumptions. Instead, developers were told to ensure apps can resize dynamically and adapt fluidly to different screen configurations.

On its own, that advice sounds fairly generic. Apple has spent years pushing developers toward responsive layouts across the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. But in the context of the newly discovered fold-related APIs, those comments start sounding very specific.

There’s more: with iOS 27 and macOS 27, users can finally resize iPhone Mirroring to any size they want, making an iPhone app the same size as an iPad app on the Mac. It’s almost as if iOS were ready for an iPhone capable of running apps on both screen sizes.

Apple rarely announces entirely new product categories without first quietly preparing its software ecosystem behind the scenes. For example, back in 2014, before the iPhone 6 was announced, Apple encouraged developers to make their apps more flexible when it came to screen sizes. Of course, there were already two different iPhone sizes at the time, but the company was clearly looking ahead to the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, and later, the iPhone X.

We also saw similar groundwork years before the Vision Pro launched, with Apple gradually introducing spatial computing frameworks into its developer tools long before the headset was official.

Apple’s foldable strategy is finally taking shape

Of course, hidden code references don’t guarantee a product launch anytime soon. Apple constantly experiments internally with hardware and features that never see the light of day. And it’s entirely possible that these code references are related to early prototypes.

But taken together, the evidence surrounding iOS 27 feels unusually specific. There are references to folded mode, APIs for detecting display angles, Apple encouraging developers to create resizable interfaces, and internal flags suggesting the existence of a device with a Dynamic Island but without Face ID, which fit rumors of the so-called iPhone Ultra.

And if iOS 27 is already laying the software groundwork, the first folding iPhone may be just around the corner.