At 18.8 inches unfolded, Apple’s next iPad Pro would be bigger than the screen on many laptops the company sells. According to people familiar with the matter, Apple is testing exactly that: a foldable OLED iPad Pro with an 18.8-inch display, expected to launch in late 2027 or early 2028. If it ships, it would be the largest tablet Apple has ever made and its most unambiguous entry into the foldable-device business.
The testing is the clearest signal yet of Apple’s foldable ambitions, a category the company has watched from the sidelines while Samsung and Huawei built out generations of folding phones. Supply-chain sources describe a device roughly the size of two current iPad Pros side by side, with a hinge in the middle and a display that unfolds to a nearly continuous surface.
The device
The 18.8-inch form factor is the striking part. Unfolded, the tablet would be larger than a 13-inch MacBook Air’s screen and close to the working area of a desktop monitor, which suggests Apple is aiming at professionals who want a portable canvas rather than a pocket companion. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has reported that Apple’s industrial design team built prototypes with a nearly invisible crease, the detail that has kept foldables from feeling premium.
The display would use OLED panels, with Samsung Display and LG Display the likely suppliers, according to display-industry analysts. Apple’s current iPad Pro, introduced in 2024, was its first tablet with OLED, using a tandem-stack design that layers two emissive panels for brightness and longevity; a foldable version would need similar technology plus a hinge and cover glass that survive hundreds of thousands of folds. Those components are where the cost and the engineering risk live.
The timeline is where the reports diverge. Display Supply Chain Consultants has predicted an 18.8-inch foldable iPad Pro as early as 2027. Gurman has placed the launch as late as 2028. The late-2027 or early-2028 window that supply-chain sources now describe splits the difference, and suggests Apple is still deciding how aggressively to push the production schedule.
Apple’s slow walk into foldables
Apple arrives late by design. The company has tended to wait for component costs, yields and quality to mature before entering a category, and foldables still carry trade-offs: heavier devices, visible creases, and screens that cost more to repair than to replace. The first foldable iPhone is also in development, with panel production already underway at Samsung Display, according to The Elec; the folding iPad is expected to follow it.
The iPad’s role in Apple’s lineup has shifted as well. Tablets were a growth category during the pandemic, then settled; iPad revenue has been uneven, and Apple has used the Pro models to demonstrate its own silicon and display work. A foldable Pro, priced at a premium, would be the latest attempt to give the line a reason to exist beyond a bigger iPhone screen, and it would test whether iPadOS can carry real productivity work at laptop scale.
The software question is as large as the hardware one. An 18.8-inch screen invites multitasking, and Apple has been pushing iPadOS toward desktop-class behavior: stage manager, external display support, and increasingly capable pro apps. A foldable Pro would force those efforts to a conclusion, because a device this size that cannot run two serious apps side by side would look like a missed opportunity.
Market context
Foldables remain a small slice of the device market, a single-digit share of global smartphone shipments, and price is the barrier: folding phones routinely cost more than $1,800. Samsung dominates with its Z Fold and Z Flip lines; Huawei has pushed large-format foldables aggressively in China. None has made the category mainstream, which cuts both ways for Apple: the market is small, but so is the competition at the premium end.
Analysts expect Apple to position a foldable iPad as a productivity device, a laptop-adjacent machine for professionals, rather than a gadget. That positioning would put it in direct tension with Apple’s own laptops, but the company has shown it will accept that: the iPad Pro already starts at a price that overlaps the MacBook Air. The bigger risk is timing, and whether the foldable wave arrives at all while Apple waits.
Bottom line
Apple’s 18.8-inch folding iPad, if the testing matures into a launch, would be its boldest hardware bet in years and its first real answer to the foldable era. The timeline gives Apple room to let the technology ripen, and its track record in displays, from the OLED iPad Pro to Mini-LED MacBooks, suggests it will wait until it can ship at volume and quality. The risk is the one Apple has faced for a decade: arriving late to a category and betting that patience still pays.
