Apple kills its $3,900 foldable iPad before it ever launched
Apple has quietly scrapped plans for a massive foldable iPad that would have cost around $3,900 and doubled as a laptop replacement. The device — a 20-inch folding OLED screen in an aluminum body, no physical keyboard — was reportedly being developed as the flagship of a new "Ultra" product tier. Now, per MacRumors, it's dead.
The device
The concept looked a lot like Huawei's dual-screen foldable laptops: closed, it resembled a MacBook; open, it became a giant tablet. Engineers built working prototypes, but the hardware was a problem. Those prototypes weighed around 1.6 kg — heavier than a 14-inch MacBook Pro and nearly three times the weight of a 13-inch iPad Pro. Apple's engineers also couldn't solve the crease, the visible fold line that remains one of the main criticisms of every folding screen on the market. At $3,900, the bar for "good enough" was extremely high, and the prototype wasn't clearing it.
Mark Gurman at Bloomberg described the project as a "wacky experiment" — notable phrasing given that it was a priority for John Ternus, who becomes Apple's CEO on September 1, 2026, succeeding Tim Cook.
Why it got cancelled
The price and weight were problems, but the deeper issue was demand. iPad revenue dropped 8% year-over-year in Q3 2025 despite the M4 Pro launch, and the iPad segment now accounts for less than 7% of Apple's total revenue. If existing iPad Pro models are selling below expectations, a $3,900 version is a hard sell — the Apple Vision Pro's limited uptake likely made that point clearly inside Cupertino.
Apple is also reorganizing its hardware leadership. With Ternus moving to the CEO role, Johny Srouji takes over as chief hardware engineer. That shift appears to have realigned investment away from the tablet category entirely.
What's next instead
The Ultra brand isn't going away — it's just skipping the iPad. A foldable iPhone Ultra, priced around $2,000, and an OLED MacBook Ultra are both reportedly on track for a late 2026 launch. Those products sit in categories where Apple holds stronger market positions and where there's clearer consumer appetite for premium pricing.
For now, if you're waiting on Apple to reinvent the tablet with a folding screen, that wait just got a lot longer.