The Real Story Behind Apple’s ‘Ultra’ iPhone and MacBook: Separating Fact from Fiction

Over the past year, the rumor mill has been moving at a fever pitch with predictions of Apple’s long-awaited foldable iPhone, which is widely expected to be announced alongside the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max this fall. Meanwhile, a slightly less prolific but still exciting set of rumors points to a redesigned MacBook Pro that could finally get a touchscreen.

However, while there’s every reason to believe these products exist in Apple’s pipeline, there’s one key part of these rumors that’s — at best — nothing more than semi-educated speculation: their names.

Apple’s product names are one of the few cards the company is still able to hold close to its vest. That’s because Apple’s supply chain partners can efficiently manufacture nearly any product without knowing what it’s going to be called.

With few exceptions, Apple rarely stamps specific product names on the hardware, and in recent years it’s become even cagier about even putting names on the packaging. Pick up an iPhone today and you’ll know what’s inside from the photo on the front and the relatively small fine print on the back.

Of course, the names are still there, but packaging isn’t usually printed until much later in the production cycle. That’s why we sometimes do get eleventh-hour leaks on product names, although these are still pretty rare.

For example, while Apple’s budget MacBook had been an open secret since this time last year — nine months before it debuted — absolutely nobody even guessed that it would be called the MacBook Neo. The only leak we got was less than 24 hours before the unveiling — and that was Apple’s fault — thanks to someone jumping the gun on posting a regulatory document. Nobody in the rumor mill even hinted at the name “Neo.”

We saw the same thing three years ago with the Apple Vision Pro. In the weeks leading up to its unveiling at Apple’s 2023 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), the consensus was it would be called the “Reality Pro.” When Apple’s Mike Rockwell took the stage to announce it, “Vision Pro” felt like it had come out of nowhere.

We can go back even further to the so-called tenth-anniversary iPhone. Until a recent trip to Goodwill, I had boxes full of pre-release cases that had been sent to me for review during the summer of 2017 labeled for the “iPhone 7s,” “iPhone 7s Plus,” and “iPhone 8” — which actually turned out to fit the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X, respectively.

The smart case-makers avoided numbers entirely, which is why anyone who was case-shopping in the fall of 2017 may remember seeing a lot of product labels like “6.1-inch iPhone (2017)” or “5.8-inch iPhone.”

The Recycled ‘iPhone Ultra’
Apple’s Naming Playbook Is One Thing Leakers Can’t Crack

I don’t want to get off on a rant here, so let’s just say I recommend taking all the reports that assume this year’s foldable iPhone will be called the “iPhone Ultra” with a massive dose of salt.

That’s not to say Apple won’t call it that, but the truth is that nobody outside of Apple really knows what it will be called at this point, and it’s telling that legitimate sources of insider info like Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman and Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo have steered clear of calling it anything at all beyond just “the foldable iPhone.” Anything else is pure conjecture.

Let’s also not forget that the rumor mill also seemed quite confident we’d see an “iPhone 15 Ultra” in 2023. No one ever agreed on exactly what this was going to be, with reports flip-flopping between a new name for the iPhone 16 Pro Max and something else that somehow went beyond Apple’s priciest flagship.

When that obviously didn’t happen, some doubled-down on the rumor, suggesting that Apple simply ran into some issues and was forced to scrap its plans (where have we heard that before?). Instead, those sources said, we’d be getting an iPhone 16 Ultra in 2024.

Forgive me if I think it’s starting to seem like “iPhone Ultra” has become a name that keeps getting stamped onto whatever cool high-end iPhone Apple is working on next. Sure, it sounds cool, and Apple may even decide it works for its first foldable — again, I’m not saying it won’t happen, but I’m also not about to bet the farm on it.

For one thing, Samsung already has a lock on the name. For years, everyone referred to the foldable iPhone as the “iPhone Fold,” but that was just a logical placeholder. Few seriously thought Apple would be so derivative as to follow in the footsteps of Samsung — or Google, for that matter. Even OnePlus knew better, calling its foldable the OnePlus Open. However, giving its foldable the same name as Samsung’s version of the iPhone Pro Max would hardly be much better.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that this name originally resurfaced from Weibo-based supply chain leakers. With perhaps only one exception, these folks almost never guess right when it comes to product names. The only reason “iPhone Ultra” gained any steam at all was an April report from Macworld, which “received information that corroborates reports that Apple will instead opt for the ‘Ultra’ brand for its new iPhone model.”

However, that report cites a single source, so while Macworld may be reporting it in good faith, there’s no reason to believe the information it’s received is accurate — and at least one reason to believe it could be off the mark.