We’re now just a few weeks away from Apple’s big iPhone launch event in September, where we expect the new iPhone 18 lineup to be announced, along with the company’s first foldable iPhone. Now, the lucky people who acted as the first testers of the foldable iPhone, rumored to be called the iPhone Ultra, have shared their experiences with Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. And according to Gurman, it looks like Apple will have a big hit on its hands. However, it seems that early reviewers have a couple of specific complaints with the device. The iPhone Ultra is a hit among testers. Over the weekend, Bloomberg Apple expert Mark Gurman shared that he has spoken to people who have actually used the iPhone Ultra. After hearing what they had to say, Gurman says he “couldn’t be more excited” about the foldable device. According to Gurman, iPhone Ultra testers love that the device is pocketable, something our phone reviewers also love about foldable phones. When the iPhone Ultra is opened, the interior screen is slightly smaller than that of an iPad mini, making the foldable device’s small size quite impressive. Gurman says testers also liked the iPad-style UX, made possible by that flexible internal screen. It also seems like all the work Apple put into perfecting the foldable device’s hinge paid off. Gurman reports that the “feel and durability of the advanced hinge mechanism” has received high praise. Mashable Light Speed Gurman specifically mentions that the iPhone Ultra also excels as a camera viewfinder. The iPhone Ultra is missing two important things. However, according to the testers Gurman spoke to, there are two main features missing from the iPhone Ultra. Crucially, as we’ve seen in leaked renders, the iPhone Ultra only has two rear cameras. That means no telephoto lens, which has become standard on most premium phones. This has been rumored for a while, but Gurman now reports that testers were disappointed with the camera array. As Gurman points out, the iPhone Ultra will likely cost at least $2,000, and “the Venn diagram of people willing to spend a lot of money on a pioneering product and those who appreciate the camera’s advanced capabilities, including deeper zoom, is probably pretty close to a circle.” Current iPhone Pro users looking to upgrade may view the loss of one of their camera lenses as a downgrade and opt to purchase the new (and almost certainly less expensive) iPhone 18 Pro or iPhone 18 Pro Max instead of the iPhone Ultra. In our recent reviews of Samsung’s new foldable devices, the camera arrays were one of our biggest complaints. Both the smaller Galaxy Z Flip 8 and the larger Z Fold 8 (which matches the shape and rumored specs of the iPhone Ultra) had disappointing cameras compared to the Pro and Ultra devices from Samsung, Google, and Apple. The second big omission is that the iPhone Ultra lacks Face ID. Gurman confirms a long-standing rumor that the phone uses Touch ID to authenticate users, which reportedly disappoints users who have become accustomed to Apple’s Face ID feature. These omitted features, along with anything else missing from the iPhone Ultra, will likely be added to future models. After all, this is Apple’s first foldable phone, but it most likely won’t be the last.
