In an investor research note today with British bank Barclays, analyst Tim Long said Apple's first foldable iPhone could have a starting price in the $2,300 range in the United States, which would make it by far the most expensive iPhone model ever.
If the first foldable iPhone starts at $2,299, that means it would cost nearly twice as much as the iPhone 16 Pro Max, which starts at $1,199.
Long shared this pricing estimate following a recent trip to Asia, where his team met with hardware manufacturers. He said there is increasing discussion within the supply chain about a foldable iPhone launching in late 2026 to early 2027, but he believes that the device's higher starting price would unsurprisingly limit sales volume.
Earlier this month, Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicted that the first foldable iPhone would be priced between $2,000 and $2,500, so multiple analysts agree that the device will cost at least a few thousand dollars. Kuo believes there could still be strong demand for the foldable iPhone despite its higher price, however, provided that the device's quality meets expectations. For example, Apple releasing a foldable smartphone without a visible crease in the screen would be a major breakthrough.
Kuo said the first foldable iPhone would feature a 7.8-inch inner display, a 5.5-inch outer display, two rear cameras, one front camera, a Touch ID power button instead of Face ID, and a high-density battery. He expects the device to be as thin as 4.5mm when unfolded, and between 9mm and 9.5mm when folded. He expects the device to have a titanium exterior, but the hinge would use a mix of titanium and stainless steel.
Kuo said the foldable iPhone would enter mass production in the fourth quarter of 2026.
With the foldable iPhone at least a year and a half away, keep in mind that this pricing estimate is surely just an educated guess.
YouTuber Dave Lee of Dave2D fame has demonstrated how Apple's new Mac Studio equipped with an M3 Ultra chip can efficiently run a huge version of the DeepSeek R1 AI model locally, provided that users spec the machine with the maximum 512GB of memory.
According to Lee's testing, the 671 billion parameter AI model can be executed directly on Apple's high-end workstation, but it requires substantial memory resources, consuming 404GB of storage and requiring the manual allocation of 448GB of video RAM through Terminal commands.
The M3 Ultra's unified memory architecture is key to this performance, allowing the system to handle a 4-bit quantized version of DeepSeek R1 efficiently. The quantization slightly reduces accuracy, but it maintains all parameters and delivers approximately 17-18 tokens per second, which is sufficient for many practical applications.
Perhaps most impressively, the Mac Studio accomplishes this while consuming under 200 watts of power. Comparable performance on traditional PC hardware would require multiple GPUs drawing approximately ten times more electricity.
The capability to run such advanced AI models locally offers privacy advantages for sensitive applications like healthcare data analysis, where sending information to cloud services raises security concerns.
However, this performance doesn't come cheap – a Mac Studio configured with M3 Ultra and 512GB of RAM starts at around $10,000. Fully maxed out, an M3 Ultra Mac Studio with 16TB of SSD storage and an Apple M3 Ultra chip with 32-core CPU, 80-core GPU, and 32-core Neural Engine costs a cool $14,099. Of course, for organizations requiring local AI processing of sensitive data, the Mac Studio offers a relatively power-efficient solution compared to alternative hardware configurations.
Apple says the M3 Ultra is the fastest Mac chip it has ever released, thanks to its strategy of fusing two M3 Max chips together using the company's "UltraFusion" technology. This makes the chip's specs double that of the M3 Max.
Apple prototyped a larger ultra-slim iPhone 17 Air with a 6.9-inch display, but ultimately decided not to go ahead with the device because of fears that it could be susceptible to bending, according to a new report.
When it first started work on the phone, it prototyped a device with a 6.9-inch screen — matching the Pro Max. Apple pulled the plug on that over fears that a thin device with a giant screen would be susceptible to bending. The company suffered such a controversy in 2014 — "Bendgate" — when the iPhone 6 Plus would sometimes warp when in a tight pocket.
Earlier this month, we reported on a rumor out of China claiming that the iPhone 17 Air shares the same dimensions as the iPhone 17 Pro Max, with the only difference being in the thickness of the devices. It's quite possible the rumor had its origins in Apple's canned prototype.
Corroborating rumors indicate that the iPhone 17 Air that Apple will launch in September will feature a 6.6-inch display with 120Hz ProMotion support, a Dynamic Island, an A19 chip, a single 48-megapixel rear camera, and Apple's custom-made C1 modem. Gurman has been told that the device may start at roughly $899 in the U.S., which is the same price point as the iPhone 16 Plus that the ultra-thin device is believed to be replacing in Apple's smartphone lineup.
Audi has enabled support for Apple's digital car key feature in its latest A6 Avant e-tron model, bringing Apple Car Keys to the automaker's electric car platform for the first time (via Mac4Ever).
Car Keys allows an iPhone or Apple Watch with NFC capabilities or Ultra Wideband to unlock a vehicle through the Wallet app. A digital version of a car key is stored in Wallet, and unlocking can be done simply by holding an Apple Watch or iPhone near a compatible vehicle's NFC reader.
A tap on the door handle is enough to initiate an unlock. Face ID authentication is a security option, but Apple also offers an Express Mode that eliminates the need to authenticate for a faster unlocking process.
The Audi A6 e-tron is the second model on on Premium Platform Electric (PPE) platform. Audi shares its PPE with Porsche, and it is expected that all the next vehicles in the group will support digital car keys.
Code changes discovered last October by MacRumors in Apple's Wallet app backend indicated that Apple has been preparing support for digital car keys for certain Volvo, Polestar, and Audi vehicles.
Apple introduced digital car key support in 2022, and select car brands like BMW, BYD, Hyundai/Genesis/Kia, Lotus, Mercedes-Benz, and RAM have implemented support for the feature. Apple maintains a full list of vehicles that support car keys on its CarPlay model availability webpage.
Apple's manufacturing partner Foxconn plans to begin assembling AirPods at its factory in Hyderabad, India in April, the Press Trust of India said today.
The report did not indicate which AirPods models will be manufactured in India, but it did say that all units produced will be exported to other countries.
AirPods production in India will further diversify Apple's supply chain. The company and its manufacturing partners have been gradually assembling more products in countries such as India and Vietnam in recent years, including select iPhone and Mac models.
Even with the push into additional countries, Apple still heavily relies on China and Taiwan for manufacturing.
Pu said the iPhone shipment outlook in 2025 is expected to be "lukewarm," due in part to Apple delaying personalized Siri features until some point "in the coming year." Looking ahead, he expects the foldable devices to boost Foxconn's business in 2026.
Rumors about foldable iPhones and iPads have been circulating for many years, and it appears that the devices are finally getting closer to launching, barring major setbacks. Depending on exactly when mass production begins in the second half of 2026, the devices could launch either later next year, or at some point in 2027.
Australian tech enthusiast Sonny Dickson today shared photos of dummy models for all four iPhone 17 models launching later this year.
Dummy models are often based on leaked designs and dimensions, and they allow accessory makers to prepare cases for upcoming iPhone models.
In line with previous rumors, the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max each have an elongated rear camera bump, housing three camera lenses, an LED camera flash, and a microphone. The so-called iPhone 17 Air has a similar rear camera bump, but with only a single lens. Last, the regular iPhone 17 has the same design as the iPhone 16.
Notably, these dummy models reveal a few potential features for the iPhone 17 Air that we had yet to hear about, including MagSafe and the Action button. There were some concerns that the iPhone 17 Air might lack MagSafe due to its ultra-thin design, but it appears the device will offer the feature after all, if these dummy models are accurate.
The inclusion of an Action button instead of a Ring/Silent switch is not much of a surprise, but it is still good to see the first evidence of this change.
A report earlier today said the iPhone 17 Air will also have a Camera Control button, and the dummy model reflects that.
A side-by-side view of the dummy models reveals that the iPhone 17 Air will look noticeably thinner than the other three iPhone 17 models.
As usual, Apple should announce its new iPhone lineup in September.
Apple today shared a trailer for Someday, an upcoming short film by Spike Jonze. The full-length video will be available to watch on YouTube starting on Tuesday, and it serves as an ad for the AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation.
The film stars actor Pedro Pascal, who is known for his roles as The Mandalorian in the Disney+ series of the same name, Joel Miller in the HBO post-apocalyptic drama series The Last of Us, Javier Peña in the Netflix crime series Narcos, and more.
In his Power On newsletter today, Gurman said that Apple seemingly has even bigger plans in regards to external displays.
Specifically, he said that Apple is working on an additional monitor, codenamed J527.
However, he is not sure what this additional monitor will end up being, so it is a mystery for now. He speculated that Apple could be developing two different second-generation Studio Display models, and will eventually choose which one to launch. Alternatively, he guessed that the J527 model could be a second-generation Pro Display XDR.
The current Pro Display XDR launched in 2019, and the Studio Display followed in 2022.
Apple is planning some of the "biggest iOS and macOS redesigns in its history," according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
In his Power On newsletter today, Gurman reiterated that iOS 19 will have a visionOS-like design with more transparent interfaces:
The new interfaces will adopt the design principles introduced in visionOS, the software for Apple's Vision Pro headset. That includes greater transparency and new types of windows and buttons — and that should make all Apple devices feel more consistent and familiar.
Apple should announce iOS 19 at WWDC 2025 in June, with the first developer beta to follow shortly after the keynote. The software update will be released to the general public in September, alongside the iPhone 17 series.
When will the iPhone get under-screen Face ID? Rumors continue to surface.
In April 2023, display industry analyst Ross Young shared a roadmap showing that iPhone 17 Pro models would feature under-display Face ID. In May 2024, however, Young said he heard this change had been delayed until 2026. If so, that means that under-screen Face ID could debut on the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max next year.
In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman offered a similar timeframe. He said that by 2026 or 2027, the Pro models should have a smaller Dynamic Island, as a result of Apple moving more components within it to under the display.
iPhone 18 Pro models with under-screen Face ID would presumably still have a pinhole at the top of the display for the front camera, similar to newer Android smartphones like Google's Pixel 9 and Samsung's Galaxy S25.
In the past, Young has said that he expects iPhones to eventually have both under-screen Face ID and an under-screen front camera. If so, the iPhone would finally have a true all-screen design, as Apple's former design chief Jony Ive dreamed of.
Apple considered launching the iPhone 17 Air without a USB-C charging port, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
In his Power On newsletter today, Gurman said that while Apple ultimately decided against making the iPhone 17 Air its first iPhone model without a charging port, the idea is still on the table for future iPhone models.
He said the iPhone 17 Air will "foreshadow a move to slimmer models without charging ports."
"The iPhone 17 Air represents the beginning of a sea change for Apple," he wrote. "Apple executives say that if this new iPhone is successful, the company intends to again attempt to make port-free iPhones and move more of its models to this slimmer approach."
Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicted that the first iPhone without a charging port would launch all the way back in 2021, but that did not happen. Apple has shifted from its custom Lightning port to the universal USB-C port on iPhones over the past few years, but the wait for an iPhone without a charging port at all continues.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman today shared some new details about the rumored iPhone 17 Air.
In his Power On newsletter, Gurman said he was told that the device may start at roughly $899 in the U.S., which means that it would occupy the same price point as the iPhone 16 Plus. This would make sense, as it has been widely rumored that the Air model will take over the Plus model's spot in the iPhone lineup going forward.
Despite its rumored ultra-thin and lightweight design, Gurman said the iPhone 17 Air will provide battery life that is "on par with current iPhones," although he did not mention any specific models. Presumably, this means that the device's battery life will be equal to the lowest-end iPhone 16 model, at a minimum. That would be surprisingly good.
Gurman said Apple has made hardware and software optimizations to make the iPhone 17 Air more power efficient. There are three rumored features for the iPhone 17 Air that should contribute to the device offering longer battery life than one might have imagined, including a higher-density battery, Apple's power-efficient C1 modem, and the lack of an Ultra Wide camera providing more internal space for a larger battery.
Gurman said the iPhone 17 Air will be equipped with the Camera Control button that debuted on all iPhone 16 models last year. This is the first time that this feature has been rumored for the device. The button provides quick access to the camera and related settings, but some people find it to be a nuisance and disable it.
He also revealed that the iPhone 17 Air's bezels around the screen will apparently be around as thin as the ones on the iPhone 16 Pro models.
A few other iPhone 17 Air specifications that he mentioned had already been rumored previously, including a 6.6-inch display with 120Hz ProMotion support, a Dynamic Island, a standard A19 chip instead of an A19 Pro chip, a single 48-megapixel rear camera, the C1 modem, and the lack of a physical SIM card slot seemingly worldwide.
Unsurprisingly, look for the iPhone 17 Air to launch in September this year.
Amazon this weekend has major discounts on a few AirPods models, including all-time low prices on the AirPods 4. You can get the base AirPods 4 for $99.99 on Amazon, down from $129.00.
Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Amazon. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.
Amazon also has the AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation for $148.99, down from $179.00. We did track these at a lower price during the 2024 holiday season, but that deal never returned and today's is the best we've seen so far in 2025.
Additionally, you can get the AirPods Pro 2 for $169.99 today on Amazon, down from $249.00. This is the lowest price we've tracked so far in 2025 on the AirPods Pro 2, and it's an overall solid second-best price.
If you're on the hunt for more discounts, be sure to visit our Apple Deals roundup where we recap the best Apple-related bargains of the past week.
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Apple this week said that it plans to add support for end-to-end encrypted RCS messages to the Messages app in future iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS software updates, and that news actually has some additional implications.
As noted by 9to5Mac's Michael Burkhardt, Apple has indirectly confirmed that it will be adopting the RCS Universal Profile 3.0 specification, which includes not only end-to-end encryption, but also several other iMessage-like enhancements that were originally introduced in version 2.7 of the specification. iOS 18 supports RCS Universal Profile 2.4.
Here are five new capabilities to expect for RCS conversations:
End-to-end encryption, which will prevent Apple and any other third party from being able to read messages and attachments while they are being sent between devices, as has always been the case with iMessage
In-line replies
Edit messages
Unsend messages
Full-fledged Tapback support for RCS messages, ensuring they always work
iMessage conversations with blue bubbles have supported end-to-end encryption by default since iOS 5. In addition, iMessage has supported in-line replies since iOS 14, while the options to edit and unsend iMessages were introduced with iOS 16.
Apple has not indicated which iOS version will upgrade RCS, but iOS 19 or a follow-up update like iOS 19.1 or iOS 19.2 seems like a safe bet.
While the so-called "iPhone 17 Air" is not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the ultra-thin device.
Overall, the "iPhone 17 Air" sounds like a mixed bag. While the device is expected to have an impressively thin and light design, rumors indicate it will have some compromises compared to iPhone 17 Pro models, including only a single rear camera, a single speaker, and an A19 chip instead of a more powerful A19 Pro chip.
While there have been some concerns that the iPhone 17 Air's thin design could result in limited battery life, the device might end up beating expectations. There are three rumored features for the iPhone 17 Air that could contribute to longer battery life than one might imagine, including a higher-density battery, Apple's power-efficient C1 modem, and the lack of an Ultra Wide camera providing more internal space for a larger battery.
Below, we recap 12 key rumors for the "iPhone 17 Air" as of March 2025:
Apple's senior director of Siri, Robby Walker, demonstrated at least some of the personalized Siri features in a "working" state during a recent all-hands meeting with the Siri team, according to a report yesterday from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman:
He showed examples during the meeting of the technology working: It was able to locate his driver's license number on command and find specific photos of a child. He also demonstrated how the technology could precisely manipulate apps via voice control. It embedded content in an email, added recipients and made other changes.
While it may sound obvious that at least some of the features are now functional within Apple, this was not entirely clear, as the company has not shown any public demos of the features being in a working state. Apple now faces the task of ensuring that the features not only work, but work well, before making them available to customers. Walker reportedly said the features were only working "up to two-thirds to 80% of the time."
Apple said it anticipates rolling out the personalized Siri features "in the coming year," but it did not provide a more specific timeframe.
Whenever they launch, the Siri upgrades will include understanding of a user's personal context, on-screen awareness, and deeper per-app controls. For example, during its WWDC 2024 keynote, Apple showed an iPhone user asking Siri about their mother's flight and lunch reservation plans based on info from the Mail and Messages apps.
Siri's personal context understanding, onscreen awareness, and in-app actions are in development and will be available with a future software update.
Gurman said the features currently "aren't expected until next year at the earliest," and recent reports from Reuters and CNBC have also mentioned a 2026 timeframe. If so, that means the Siri upgrades are unlikely to launch until iOS 19.4 or later.
While Apple launched a bunch of new hardware this week, the biggest news was on the software side where a delay for some of the previously announced Apple Intelligence Siri features has led to scrutiny of Apple's actions and uneasiness among those at the company.
This week also saw revived rumors about a significant overhaul in design and functionality coming in iOS 19, while Apple's latest Mac and iPad models began making their way into reviewers' and consumers' hands, so read on below for all the details on these stories and more!
John Gruber Says 'Something is Rotten' at Apple Following Apple Intelligence Siri Delay
In the wake of the news, Daring Fireball's John Gruber shared some strongly worded comments about the situation in a blog post titled "Something Is Rotten in the State of Cupertino." Gruber outlined his belief that these more advanced Apple Intelligence features announced at WWDC 2024 amount to vaporware, with Apple still having shown no evidence that these actually exist in a functional form.
While Apple has in the past occasionally delayed or canceled software and hardware projects, Gruber is concerned that Apple has marketed its AI future around features that remain concept videos, threatening the company's credibility and perhaps representing deep-seated issues at Apple.
iOS 19 Will Bring Biggest Design Overhaul Since iOS 7
While details are light, it appears design changes are "loosely based" on visionOS for Apple Vision Pro, which utilizes a lot of depth and transparency, though the 2D interfaces of more traditional devices won't be able to fully adopt those qualities.
M4 MacBook Air Reviews Are Now Out, Plus Sky Blue Unboxing Videos
Following their introduction last week, Apple's new Mac and iPad models have officially launched, with the list including new MacBook Air and Mac Studio models as well as updated versions of the iPad Air and entry-level iPad.
Apple says the M4 MacBook Air, which comes in a new Sky Blue color option, is up to 23x faster than the final Intel-based model from 2020, though only in one specific test. Still, anyone upgrading from a machine several generations old should see significant speed improvements in a variety of day-to-day tasks. For a look at our early impressions of the new MacBook Air, be sure to check out our hands-on video.
Video Shows iPhone 17 Mockups Based on 'Internal Documents'
While the standard iPhone 17 is expected to retain a very similar design to the iPhone 16, the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are expected to see a significant redesign with a much larger camera bump spanning the entire upper rear portion of the devices. The all-new ultra-thin "iPhone 17 Air" should see a similar but slimmer bump given it only has one rear camera compared to three on the Pro models.
Apple Upgrades CarPlay in Two Ways
The upcoming iOS 18.4 update will include two enhancements that will benefit some CarPlay users: a third row of app icons on certain larger infotainment displays and new EV routing to help Ford Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning owners find charging stations that use the North American Charging Standard (NACS).
On a related front, iOS 18.4 will allow users in the European Union to set their own default navigation app such as Google Maps. The change, made in response to the EU's Digital Markets Act, will be a welcome one for users who prefer not to rely on Apple Maps for navigation.
Apple Introduced Its Most Controversial MacBook 10 Years Ago This Week
Introduced by Apple CEO Tim Cook at Apple's "Spring Forward" event on March 9, 2015, as a "reinvention" of the notebook, the MacBook was extremely controversial due to its under-powered performance, single USB-C port for both charging and data transfer, short battery life, unreliable butterfly keyboard, and high price point ($1,299 starting price in 2015—the same as a MacBook Pro at the time).
However, the 12-inch MacBook offered a glimpse at what was to come in the Mac lineup. It was the first Apple device with a USB-C port, terraced battery, butterfly keyboard, and haptic trackpad. It was also the first MacBook with a design focused on efficiency, a Retina display in a non-Pro model, multiple color options, and without a fan or an illuminated Apple logo.
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