Throughout the past year, the rumor mill has been churning with speculation about Apple's long-awaited foldable phone, widely expected to be announced alongside the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max this fall. Meanwhile, another wave of intriguing rumors points to a redesigned MacBook Pro that may finally get a touchscreen. But while there's every reason to believe these products are indeed in Apple's future plans, one key detail in these rumors remains purely speculative: the name!
The naming mystery and how Apple fools everyone
Apple's product names are one of the few pieces of information the company still manages to keep very close to its chest and extremely secret. The reason is simple: its supply chain partners can manufacture almost any product efficiently without having the slightest idea what it will be marketed as. With rare exceptions, Apple doesn't put a specific product name on the internal hardware, and in recent years it has become even more cautious about printing names on the outer packaging.
Of course, the names still exist, but the packaging isn't usually printed until a very late stage in the production cycle. That's why we sometimes get last-minute leaks about product names, although these are still very rare. For example, while the budget MacBook was an open secret nine months before its debut, nobody expected it to be called the "MacBook Neo." The only leak we got was less than 24 hours before the official announcement, and that was due to an error by Apple itself in hastily publishing a regulatory document. No leaker had ever mentioned that name before.
We saw the same thing three years ago with Apple's Vision Pro. In the weeks leading up to its unveiling at the 2023 Worldwide Developers Conference, the consensus in the tech world was that it would be called "Reality Pro." When Mike Rockwell took the stage to announce it, the name "Vision Pro" seemed to come out of nowhere and shocked everyone.
Apple's naming game and the repetition of the "iPhone Ultra" lie
Therefore, we advise you to take all reports suggesting that this year's upcoming foldable phone will be called the "iPhone Ultra" with a healthy dose of skepticism. This doesn't mean Apple won't necessarily choose that name, but the reality is that no one outside of Apple truly knows what it will be called at this stage. Interestingly, reliable sources of inside information, such as Bloomberg's Mark Gurman and analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, have consistently avoided calling it anything other than "the foldable iPhone." Anything else is pure speculation.
Let's not forget that the rumor mills were absolutely certain we'd see the "iPhone 15 Ultra" in 2023. At the time, no one agreed on its specifications, and reports oscillated between it being a new name for the Pro Max version or a super-product surpassing Apple's most expensive phones. When that proved false, the leakers repeated the same refrain, claiming Apple had postponed its plans and we'd see the "iPhone 16 Ultra" in 2024, which also didn't happen. It seems the "Ultra" moniker has become a ready-made stamp that leakers attach to any high-end phone Apple is working on.
Furthermore, Samsung has been using the “Ultra” name on its flagship phones for years. Using the same name for Apple’s foldable phone might seem like an inappropriate imitation. Even other companies like OnePlus have opted for more innovative names like “OnePlus Open.” As for leakers on the Chinese platform Weibo, they rarely get product names right, and reports attempting to confirm the “Ultra” branding are often based on a single, unreliable source.
The MacBook Ultra... a mathematically illogical idea!
So far, Apple has used the word “Ultra” for only two products: the Apple Watch Ultra, to denote a rugged sports watch, and its ultra-powerful “Ultra” processors used in the Mac Studio (and previously the Mac Pro). This demonstrates that the company is comfortable using the name for different purposes, much like the “Air” suffix, which can mean almost anything Apple wants to say. The original MacBook Air was thin and expensive, then later became associated with the budget segment, and with the iPad, the name has oscillated between thin and mid-range.
But the idea of a "MacBook Ultra" seems illogical given Apple's silicon processor architecture. Reports suggest Apple might skip the M6 Pro and Max processors and go straight to the M7. However, the new touch-enabled MacBook will most likely feature the Pro and Max chips, while the true Ultra chips will remain exclusive to desktops like the Mac Studio. How can a laptop be called "Ultra" when the more powerful processor with the same name is in a desktop? This will create a confusing discrepancy for users.
Apple has always been careful to keep its product lines as simple as possible, adhering to the "good, better, best" formula. It has never introduced a mysterious fourth category that inexplicably surpasses the Pro. Of course, with John Ternos about to take over as Apple's new CEO, no one knows what innovative marketing ideas the young minds behind him might have, and we should be prepared for all possibilities.
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