Why I designed a folding iPhone mini
I’d like to use my phone less, but make the moments I do use it more intentional, meaningful and delightful. That’s the whole idea behind iPhone Flip.
Phones keep getting bigger, and so does the time we spend on them. Apple stopped making the iPhone mini in 2023, and people never really stopped asking for it. There’s a whole community on Reddit still holding on to theirs. Meanwhile, foldables went the other way: a big phone that opens into a bigger one.
I wanted the opposite. A small phone that folds into a smaller one, with just enough screen on the outside to see the time, take a call or pay for a coffee, and nothing there to pull you in.
Open, it’s an iPhone 13 mini. Closed, it’s half of one, smaller than a sticky note. The outside screen is the same size as an Apple Watch display, so every watch app and face would just work there. Nothing in it is new to Apple: I started from Apple’s own published specs and drawings for the iPhone 13 mini and iPhone Duo, down to the millimeter, and only used tech that already exists.
The full technical drawings are on the Flip page, or as a PDF.
This connects to what I spend my days on. With Reflection, I think a lot about how technology can help us live more intentional, meaningful lives. A phone you open on purpose felt like the clearest version of that idea.
What do I hope comes from it? Honestly, that someone at Apple sees it. If enough of us ask, maybe the next iPhone folds smaller, not larger. And if it never ships, I hope it gets you thinking about the thing in your pocket: how much of your day it should get, and what you’d actually want it to do.