One of the reported reasons for Apple taking such a long time to introduce a folding iPhone is that the company was unhappy with the very visible crease and vulnerability of earlier generations of flexible screens.

Display partner Samsung finally solved this to Apple’s satisfaction, and the launch of the Korean company’s latest folding smartphone has now provided a preview of what we can expect from the iPhone Ultra display …

Apple will have waited a full six years after the launch of the first folding Android smartphone before introducing an iPhone version. The wisdom of this was quickly revealed when the first generation Samsung Galaxy Fold display proved so vulnerable to damage, the company had to withdraw it from sale.

Since then, it seems Apple has been waiting until the flexible display tech had matured to the point where there is no visible crease when the device is unfolded. The company reportedly had to get its own design engineers involved in helping Samsung achieve this.

While the version of the display destined for the iPhone Ultra may not be 100% identical to that seen in the just-launched Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, it is likely to be extremely similar.

It’s not actually the first time we’ve seen the panel. The company very briefly showed off a prototype of the display back in January before very rapidly removing it from public view. It seems that someone in the company quickly realized this was supposed to stay under wraps, likely in part because it was destined for an Apple device.

Andrew Romero from our sister site 9to5Google is extremely impressed with the new screen.

The improvement year-over-year is astonishing […] It’s genuinely a sort of shock coming from the Galaxy Z Fold, which had a dip running down the display. That dip looks like a canyon, now. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra barely has a faint deviation down the center of the internal 8-inch display. Even in the harshest lighting conditions with the display off, the line is hard to make out.

He also said that the crease in its predecessor became increasingly visible after repeated folding and unfolding, but that doesn’t appear to be the case in his limited hands-on time with the latest generation device.

The iPhone Ultra is expected to be unveiled alongside the iPhone 18 Pro in September, with a 5.3-inch outer display and a 7.6-inch inner one.

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