Everyone is waiting for Apple to finally jump into the foldable market. Up until last week, the word on the street was that the iPhone Fold (some call it the iPhone Ultra) would be announced this fall, but wouldn't actually hit store shelves until late November or even December.

Well, you can probably scrap that timeline now.

Trial Production Begins A reliable tipster on Weibo just dropped a massive update regarding Apple's supply chain. Foxconn, Apple's primary manufacturing partner in China, has officially kicked off trial production for the iPhone Fold.

This is a huge milestone. Trial production basically means the final design is locked in, and the factories are just figuring out the fastest and safest way to build this device at scale before hitting the big green button.

A Synchronized September Launch? If everything goes smoothly during this trial run without any major hardware hiccups, mass production is scheduled to start right around July.

Why is July so important? Because that is exactly when mass production for the standard iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max kicks off every year. This heavily implies that Apple is pushing its supply chain hard to release all of its premium phones at the exact same time. So, instead of a staggered release, we might just see the iPhone Fold sitting right next to the iPhone 18 Pro in Apple stores this September.

TecHoper's Take Let's be honest, Apple is very late to the foldable party. Brands like Samsung and Vivo are already on their 5th or 6th generation of folding phones. But Apple rarely rushes a product just to be first.

If they are pushing Foxconn to align the Fold's production perfectly with the iPhone 18 series, they must be extremely confident in their hinge durability and the way iOS handles that inner screen. If you were planning to upgrade to a Pro model this fall, you might want to start saving a little extra cash just in case this foldable actually drops.