What Changed: iOS

July 11, 2026

iOS 27's Code Confirms a Foldable iPhone. Public Beta Expected Monday.

▶ Listen 🎧 Podcast app

Developers found Apple's foldable phone buried in the first iOS 27 beta back in June. With the public beta expected Monday, here's what the code actually says, what Apple is forcing developers to do about it, and a fresh WhatsApp finding. Your phone should still be on iOS 26.5.2.

The one-line verdict

Nothing shipped from Apple overnight. beta.apple.com still lists the iOS 27 public beta as "coming soon," but the historical pattern points to Monday, July 13, or Tuesday, July 14. Your phone should still be running iOS 26.5.2. The public beta is two days away, not today.

What's hiding in iOS 27's code: a foldable iPhone

The biggest thing buried in iOS 27 has nothing to do with Siri. When Apple released the first developer beta on June 8, designer and engineer Sam Henri Gold spotted strings in the CoreMotion framework that only make sense on a phone that folds. The string foldState tracks whether a device is open or closed. angleDegrees and mechanicalAngleDegrees track how far the hinge has rotated. A new MobileGestalt key returns the total count of built-in displays, which serves no purpose on a phone with one screen.

9to5Mac's Ryan Christoffel verified the references and confirmed none of them existed in iOS 26. Software researcher M1Astra shared the findings with Bloomberg News, as reported by Gadget Scout. Macworld independently confirmed and noted those state values have no reason to exist on anything other than a folding device.

The evidence goes deeper than framework strings. Apple's internal Service Utility, the tool used to calibrate and repair iPhone displays, contains references to a secondary display, two ambient light sensors, and a second cover glass, according to Cult of Mac. Gizbot found that Apple deprecated UIRequiresFullScreen, a flag dating back to iOS 9 that let apps opt out of resizing. Apple called it a compatibility mode that will be ignored in a future release and told developers to remove it now. The UIScene lifecycle, which lets an app run as multiple independent resizable windows, will be required when building with the next SDK. Apple backed this with real tooling: a resizable iOS simulator, Xcode previews that test arbitrary aspect ratios, and a coding agent that flags resizability problems.

Two iOS 27 features only make sense with a bigger screen. Full-page widgets are new to iPhone this year. Split-view multitasking comes to iPhone for the first time, an iPad-only feature until now. On a standard iPhone screen those are nice-to-have. On a nearly 8-inch unfolded display, they are the whole point.

Apple has not announced the device. Rumors point to a book-style foldable called iPhone Ultra or iPhone Fold, expected September 2026 alongside the iPhone 18 Pro lineup, with a roughly 7.8-inch inner display, a 5.5-inch cover display, Touch ID instead of Face ID, a titanium frame with a Liquid Metal hinge, the A20 chip, and the C2 modem. DigiTimes reported mass production was pushed from June to August, though Bloomberg's Mark Gurman maintains the September timeline.

What this means for you on Monday: the public beta you install will already have foldable iPhone support baked in. You will not see it (your iPhone does not fold), but the code is there, and Apple is already forcing its developer ecosystem to prepare for a screen that changes shape.

WhatsApp: pinned channel updates spotted on iOS

WABetaInfo reported July 10 that WhatsApp is developing a feature to let channel admins pin a specific update at the top of their channel. Pinned updates last 30 days before auto-unpinning, and admins can unpin early through the same context menu. The feature was spotted in WhatsApp beta for iOS 26.27.10.70 on TestFlight, but it is still under development and not available to beta testers yet. No timeline for release.

This is a minor addition to WhatsApp's channel toolkit. Pinned messages in chats and groups already let users choose durations of 24 hours, 7 days, or 30 days. Channel pins are fixed at 30 days, no options. The bigger WhatsApp story this feed is tracking, username reservation, is still rolling out gradually to all users. You can claim a handle in Settings > Account > Username.

Public beta countdown: Monday or Tuesday

beta.apple.com still says "coming soon." The pattern is consistent: in 2022, 2023, and 2024, Apple released the first public beta exactly one week after dev beta 3, which shipped July 6. That points to Monday, July 13, or Tuesday, July 14. Last year was the exception (Apple waited for beta 4 on July 22, then shipped the public beta July 24), attributed to Liquid Glass stabilization. This cycle's betas are reportedly more stable, making the earlier timeline more likely, per a Forbes analysis updated July 11.

If you missed yesterday's prep guide, the short version: archive a Finder backup before installing, because regular backups get overwritten once iOS 27 backs up and you lose your rollback path. Free up 8 to 10 GB. Know that Siri AI requires iPhone 15 Pro or newer, is English-only, and is blocked in the EU and China at launch. Even after installing, you will need to join the Siri AI waitlist in Settings > Siri, and the wait can stretch past a week.

Tracking

iOS 26.6: Still in beta 4 (build 23G5057c, released July 6). Bug fixes and security only. Aaron Zollo expects the release candidate as early as Monday, July 13, the same window as the iOS 27 public beta. When it ships, it will be the last update to the iOS 26 generation before September's iOS 27 launch. Your phone should stay on iOS 26.5.2 until then.

Want the next one?

Every new What Changed: iOS issue by email. One tap to unsubscribe.