The latest leak about the first folding iPhone says Apple might not deliver the extreme battery capacity that most early rumors indicated.
If you were banking on a foldable with all-day battery life, this is worth pausing on.
Folding iPhone battery by the numbers, according to the leak
Battery life is the single biggest question mark hanging over any foldable phone, including the one Apple is expected to unveil this September. Previous reports hinted Apple would use the larger chassis of the rumored device, possibly called the iPhone Ultra, to pack in a super-size battery. But a new leak says otherwise.
The claim comes from Digital Chat Station, a source with a pretty strong track record when it comes to Apple’s supply chain. The leaker says Apple’s battery supplier registered two cells for the foldable — one rated at 1,921mAh and the other at 2,962mAh.
Add them together, and you get a 4,883mAh battery split across the device’s two halves, which is standard for a foldable. The leaker adds that the supply chain is expecting somewhere between 4,800mAh and 5,000mAh, so the numbers add up.
So much for Apple packing in the biggest battery in foldable phone history.
The newly rumored specs are a huge comedown from earlier reports, which hinted at figures between 5,400mAh and 5,800mAh. However, those older figures were reportedly tied to an engineering test unit, not Apple’s final design. Apple might have changed its plans since then. Or that early capacity might never have been accurate to start with.
How it stacks up against the competition
Even with a 4,900mAh battery, Apple’s foldable won’t be the runt of the litter. Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold7 comes with a measly 4,400mAh battery, which means the foldable iPhone could out-muscle Samsung’s flagship foldable. Still, it would lose out to the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold, which packs a 5,015mAh battery.
Still, that’s all just on paper. Apple devices usually squeeze more real-world battery life out of smaller cells than raw numbers suggest. For instance, the iPhone 17 Pro Max managed 28 hours of continuous web browsing from a 4,823mAh battery in third-party testing. In other words, a big mAh number looks impressive, but it’s not the whole story.
What we know so far about the folding iPhone
Apart from the battery, the leaks paint a consistent picture. The foldable iPhone is said to have a 7.8-inch inner display paired with a 5.5-inch cover screen, Touch ID instead of Face ID, an A20 chip and an Apple C2 modem in select markets.
Previous reports floated the name “iPhone Ultra” for the product, and IDC expects it to cost somewhere around $2,500.
Apple’s first foldable iPhone is shaping up to be a flagship experiment, not just a proof of concept. We’ll soon know how Apple balanced thinness against battery life. The device is expected to debut alongside the iPhone 18 Pro lineup this September.
Anurag Chawake is a tech-focused writer specializing in smartphones, apps and consumer technology. His interest in computers began during the Windows 98 era, eventually leading him to explore everything from operating systems to mobile devices and PC hardware. Anurag previously contributed to The Indian Express, covering Apple, Android, gaming and the broader technology landscape.
