Samsung previews the iPhone Ultra’s creaseless display

Apple may finally be close to solving one of the biggest problems with foldable phones: the visible crease. Samsung’s newly launched Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra offers an early look at the flexible display technology reportedly being prepared for Apple’s first folding iPhone.

Why Apple waited on a folding iPhone

Apple is expected to introduce its first foldable iPhone six years after the launch of the first folding Android smartphone. The delay appears to have been driven partly by concerns over durability and the prominent crease visible on earlier flexible displays.

The original Samsung Galaxy Fold underscored those risks. Its display proved so vulnerable to damage that Samsung had to withdraw the first-generation device from sale. Apple reportedly waited for the technology to mature and is said to have involved its own design engineers in helping Samsung develop a panel with a far less visible crease.

The screen in the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra may not be identical to the one intended for the iPhone Ultra, but the two are expected to be extremely similar. Samsung briefly showed a prototype of the panel in January before quickly removing it from public view, suggesting the display was not meant to be revealed yet.

Andrew Romero of 9to5Google tested the new phone and described the improvement over its predecessor as dramatic:

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“The improvement year-over-year is astonishing […] It’s genuinely a sort of shock coming from the Galaxy Z Fold, which had a dip running down the display. That dip looks like a canyon, now. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra barely has a faint deviation down the center of the internal 8-inch display. Even in the harshest lighting conditions with the display off, the line is hard to make out.”

Romero also said the previous model’s crease became more noticeable after repeated folding and unfolding. That behavior did not appear during his limited hands-on time with the latest generation.

Apple’s iPhone Ultra is expected to debut alongside the iPhone 18 Pro in September, with a reported 5.3-inch outer display and 7.6-inch inner display.