For mobile gamers, nowhere has better games than iOS.
Though almost all of the best gaming phones are Android handsets, Apple’s mobile platform has the best selection of triple-A (big-budget) games, console ports, and creative mobile originals. Furthermore, Apple Arcade sits leagues above Google’s Play Pass service, thanks to the curation and quality of the titles on offer.
I grew up in the early days of the iPhone, and during that time my gaming console of choice was often my iPod Touch or the iPhone 5S that replaced it: I’ve always seen iOS as a unique home for some truly excellent titles.
That’s truer than ever today. iOS and iPadOS are the only mobile operating systems with a proper selection of console-class titles – I’m talking Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, Death Stranding, Sniper Elite 4, Control, and Resident Evil 4 Remake, among others. We’ve come a long way from the days when Jetpack Joyride was the most advanced game in the App Store (though Halfbrick’s infinite scroller is still totally brilliant).
Folding iPhone intrigue
According to every credible tech leaker, tipster, and rumor aggregator, Apple is working on a folding iPhone.
What’s more, it could be a real oddity, with a wide iPad mini-style display and a squat passport-style cover screen. The latest rumors point to an inner screen of around 7.7 inches and an approximate aspect ratio of 14:10, which is just a bit squatter than the iPad mini’s 3:2 panel.
Most of the best folding phones – at least those with a booklet form factor – tend to emulate typical slab phone displays with their cover screens, with a large square-ish inner display, so this suggests Apple could be taking a different approach.
Those conventional booklet-style folding phones are great for reading, multitasking, and taking photos and videos, but aren’t that well suited to certain games – particularly console titles originally developed for TVs and monitors, or first-person games that rely on the player having a wide field of view. I’m sure Call of Duty Mobile runs well on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, but you’re at a practical disadvantage if you use the inner display over the wider cover screen, because of the hemmed-in visual field.
A wider folding screen, alongside a powerful A-series chipset and a healthy battery capacity, could make the folding iPhone an excellent mobile gaming machine. At its rumored screen size of about 7.7 inches, it’d offer a similar display size to the Nintendo Switch 2 while folding down to a size just a little bit larger than the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7. That’s a mix of power and portability that other gaming phones – nearly always slabs with large screens – don’t quite match.
Huawei ahead of the curve
Naturally, we can look to China to see that this general concept has already been attempted. Huawei released the Pura X earlier this year, around the time that iPhone Fold rumors were beginning to heat up. The Pura X sports a 6.3-inch inner display with a 16:10 aspect ratio, with a square 3.5-inch cover display.
Since the Pura X is a China exclusive, I’ve not had a chance to get any hands-on experience with it – but I appreciate its style from afar. The key here is the inner display, which at 16:10 is well suited to gaming, so this type of form factor combined with iOS’ superior selection of games could make for a really enticing combination.
Now, I’m not expecting Apple to centre its rumored folding iPhone around gaming – in fact, I’d expect any Apple folding phone to be aggressively marketed as a general purpose device, in contrast to Samsung’s focus on performance and productivity. I just hope Apple goes for the weird and wide design to make the most of this speculative phone’s gaming potential.
How should Apple design the rumored iPhone Fold? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
