Update, Saturday July 18: This article has been updated with recent stories illustrating why Apple may want to avoid the ‘Ultra’ moniker.
Apple’s community is eagerly awaiting Apple’s foldable iPhone. Discussions online about the presumptively named iPhone Ultra focus on the form factor, performance, and the iOS changes that will drive it. But will Apple stick with the community’s adoption of the iPhone Ultra as its name? Can Apple find more value in dropping the iPhone Ultra and going with something better suited for the debutant?
Apple Can Reset The iPhone Ultra’s Search Engine Presence
Launching the foldable iPhone under a novel proprietary name allows Apple to clean its search engine visibility and avoid the speculation indexed around iPhone Ultra name.
Now, we have another ultra on the horizon. The straightforward iPhone Ultra is expected to arrive in September this year as Apple’s first foldable smartphone. This will take on the book-style format, offering a smartphone-esque display when closed and a tablet-esque inner screen when unfolded. It certainly feels like an Ultra handset. Yet there is value in Apple deciding to skip over the Ultra moniker once more.
Every sign points to the foldable iPhone being revealed this September; if it wasn’t coming, you’d have expected a quiet nudge from Apple’s PR team to appear in the coverage, to dampen the speculation. If you search for iPhone Ultra, you will find a vast treasure trove of analysis, speculation, leaks, hopes and expectations. Some of this will match with the new phone, some will be wildly off, and all of them will show up when consumers search for details on the new foldable iPhone.
Assuming it is called the iPhone Ultra. The iPhone Ultra name is established in tech circles, but not elsewhere. If Apple were to launch its foldable iPhone not as the iPhone Ultra but as, for example, the iPhone Plicabilis (which Latin scholars would surely love), then the search term would be virtually clean. Apple’s pages would appear and rank highly, and articles written after the launch and reveal would be found, rather than the older, likely factually incorrect information.
Update, Saturday July 18: This article has been updated with recent stories illustrating why Apple may want to avoid the ‘Ultra’ moniker.
The iPhone Ultra Comparisons Already Established
The iPhone Ultra is already riding high in search engine results. It’s also seeing comparisons to upcoming Android hardware, and they’re not glowing. Whether they match up with the hardware or are wide of the mark remains to be seen. What is clear is that, with a name change, the September searches around the foldable iPhone won’t be dominated by editorials over the last few days.
Take PhoneArena’s look at how Samsung’s “Galaxy Z Fold 8 is wiping the floor with the foldable iPhone Ultra, and Apple should get scared.” It certainly sets the stage for the upcoming Galaxy Unpacked event, but it also casts a negative light on Apple’s foldable before the iPhone launch in September. Samsung has already debuted the Flext Technology hardware that will be the actual fold in the Galaxy Z Fold8. Chris Smith picks up the story and sets up a direct challenge to Apple’s device with “Samsung debuts the foldable display tech designed to stay ahead of the Apple iPhone Ultra.”
There are other comparisons out there that diminish the iPhone’s potential. Trusted Reviews writes, “The foldable iPhone Ultra’s battery could be smaller than expected.” NotebookCheck matches up Xiaomi’s Mix Fold 5 as the heir apparent. Ilia Temelkova pitches the Honor Magic V6 as the phone that already trumps Samsung’s and Apple’s efforts.
If Apple moves away from the Ultra moniker for its foldable iPhone, all of these comparisons will be diminished, and a new story can be told to the wider audience.
John Ternus Can Stick With iPhone Ultra Or Twist For A New Name
Incoming CEO John Ternus can position the foldable iPhone as a critical milestone that dictates Apple’s premium product architecture for the next 10 years.
Staying with “iPhone Ultra” will allow Apple to leverage the current coverage that discusses the advanced technology of foldables and how Apple will have learned lessons from the army of Android foldables. It’s a clear statement of the phone’s place in the portfolio. Yet there’s rather a lot of competing devices already using the ‘Ultra’ moniker. Does Apple really want to be grouped alongside them?
A renamed foldable iPhone draws a line under speculation and allows Apple to offer more practical and factual news to consumers. Coverage would focus on the new features in iOS, Apple Intelligence, and Siri AI, and, in the narrower sense, on Apple’s approach to 27, both in the broader sense of different forms of the foldable.
I wonder which way incoming CEO John Ternus will take the iPhone Ultra?
