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Apple’s long-rumored first foldable iPhone, widely expected to be called the iPhone Ultra, could go on sale as soon as Sept. 18 at a price above $2,000, according to a growing body of leaks that point toward a device built specifically to solve the visible screen crease that has affected every foldable phone released to date.

According to Yanko Design, the device is expected to be unveiled at Apple’s keynote event, anticipated for either Sept. 8 or 9, with a confirmed on-sale date reportedly set for Sept. 18. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo’s price estimate reportedly sets a floor above $2,000, with a ceiling as high as $2,500, according to the outlet, a range broadly consistent with pricing estimates circulating across multiple other reports.

The crease that appears at the fold line of every existing foldable phone has remained the category’s most persistent design flaw since the format’s introduction in 2019, according to Yanko Design, with manufacturers including Samsung, Google, Honor and Xiaomi all working to minimize its visibility without fully eliminating it. Apple is reportedly positioning a near-invisible crease as a central selling point of its own first foldable device.

According to multiple leaks compiled by PhoneArena, Apple is expected to rely on ultra-thin glass for the foldable display, a material more flexible than standard glass but somewhat less impact-resistant, allowing for a shallower, less visible crease at some cost to overall durability. The crease itself is reportedly expected to measure under 0.15 millimeters deep with a fold angle of roughly 2.5 degrees, a meaningful improvement over the Galaxy Z Fold 7’s reported 0.7-millimeter-deep crease at a 3-to-4-degree angle, according to PhoneArena’s reporting. A separate report cited by Beebom Gadgets similarly pointed to a 0.15-millimeter crease depth, though still deeper than the 0.05-millimeter figure reported for Oppo’s Find N6 foldable, suggesting Apple’s crease reduction, while significant, may not represent an outright industry first.

Central to Apple’s crease-reduction strategy is a reported liquid-metal hinge, sourced through a contract with Apple’s Liquidmetal Technologies partnership, according to Yanko Design, which described the material as an amorphous metallic alloy lacking the crystalline grain structure that causes conventional metals to deform under repeated stress. PhoneArena offered additional technical detail, reporting that Apple is separately said to be using a 3D-printed titanium hinge sealed with a filler material to close small gaps left by the printing process, a more cost-effective manufacturing approach than traditional precision machining. According to that outlet, Ming-Chi Kuo estimated Apple’s final hinge design costs between $70 and $80 per unit, roughly 20% below the $100 to $120 figure suggested by earlier leaks. PhoneArena also noted that early supply chain reports had flagged a minor hinge rattling issue, though more recent reporting suggests those concerns are being addressed ahead of mass production.

Display specifications reported across multiple outlets describe a device featuring a roughly 5.5-inch external cover screen and a larger internal foldable display, variously reported between 7.6 and 7.8 inches depending on the source. Geeky Gadgets reported both displays would be sourced from Samsung, citing a peak brightness of 3,000 nits and Ceramic Shield 2 glass for improved scratch resistance. Back Market similarly confirmed that Samsung will exclusively supply the foldable display under a three-year agreement announced in April, describing it as a notable partnership between the two longtime rivals in the smartphone display space. Multiple sources described the internal display’s aspect ratio as roughly 4:3, a squarer format Yanko Design suggested was intended to better support side-by-side app usage, closer in proportion to an iPad mini than to the taller, narrower internal displays used by rival foldables such as the Galaxy Z Fold 8.

Yanko Design’s reporting also described a notable change to Apple’s biometric security approach for the device, with Touch ID reportedly returning via a side button rather than Face ID, a shift the outlet attributed to the physical constraints of fitting a structured-light Face ID sensor array into a chassis reportedly measuring just 4.8 millimeters when open. Multiple other outlets, including Back Market, confirmed the device is expected to lack Face ID entirely, along with a telephoto camera and some other camera hardware found on the standard iPhone 18 Pro lineup, reflecting design trade-offs inherent to a first-generation foldable device.

Processing power for the device is expected to come from Apple’s A20 Pro chip, reportedly built on a 2-nanometer manufacturing process, according to Yanko Design, paired with 12 gigabytes of RAM. Techable News additionally reported that the device is expected to feature vapor chamber cooling, the same heat-dissipation technology Apple introduced with the iPhone 17 Pro, an addition that would help manage thermal output within the device’s slim folded profile.

Initial supply is expected to be significantly constrained. According to Yanko Design, Weibo-based leakers have suggested it could take Apple three to five months to reach a production target of 10 million units, meaning that while the device’s on-sale date may arrive as planned, widespread availability could remain limited well into the holiday shopping season. Back Market similarly cautioned that manufacturing constraints tied to surface-mount technology production could push broader availability into late 2026 or even into 2027, suggesting that even customers eager to purchase the device at launch may face significant availability challenges.

As with all pre-announcement Apple leaks, the specific pricing, launch date, technical specifications and design details outlined across these various reports remain unconfirmed by Apple directly and are subject to change ahead of any official unveiling. Given the volume and increasing consistency of leaks pointing toward a September announcement, however, industry observers continue to treat Apple’s first foldable iPhone as one of the most closely watched product launches of the year, with the device’s ultimate success likely to hinge, in large part, on whether its crease-reduction claims hold up to real-world scrutiny once reviewers and consumers are finally able to test the hardware for themselves.

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Fans of the New York Times’ popular word-grouping game Connections have a fresh puzzle to work through for Sunday, Aug. 23, 2026, marking game number 1,169 in the daily franchise. Below are hints organized by difficulty level, followed by the complete answer set for anyone ready to check their work.

Connections challenges players to sort 16 words into four groups of four, with each group sharing a hidden theme or connection. The puzzle assigns a color-coded difficulty level to each category: yellow represents the most straightforward group, followed by green, then blue, with purple reserved for the trickiest and most conceptually deceptive category of the day. Players are allowed up to four incorrect guesses before the puzzle ends and the full solution is revealed automatically. The game, created by New York Times puzzle editor Wyna Liu, launched in beta in June 2023 and has since grown into the second-most-played puzzle in the Times’ games lineup, trailing only Wordle itself in overall popularity.

According to Forbes, which rates each day’s puzzle difficulty on a five-point scale using its own Connections Bot tool, Sunday’s puzzle scored a 2 out of 5, indicating a relatively approachable solve compared with some of the more challenging entries the game has featured in recent weeks. Forbes writer Erik Kain described his own experience with the puzzle, noting that while the “potentially explosive things” category felt fairly easy to spot, he found himself momentarily thrown off by a cluster of words beginning with the letter “V” and by the presence of common household cleaning terms overlapping with an unrelated category, describing VACUUM in particular as “a red herring if ever there was one.”

Here are hints for each of today’s four categories, presented from easiest to hardest.

The yellow group, the most straightforward of the day, centers on things capable of causing a sudden, dangerous eruption or blast, whether figuratively or literally. According to NerdsChalk, this category blends straightforward action-oriented and descriptive words that should click into place relatively quickly once the underlying theme becomes clear.

The green group relies on a spelling-based pattern rather than a thematic one, according to NerdsChalk, which specifically flagged this as “a double-vowel category,” meaning each word in the group contains a repeated vowel pair somewhere within its spelling. This kind of structural, spelling-dependent connection often trips up players who focus purely on word meaning rather than letter patterns.

The blue group ties together four items connected to potatoes, according to Parade, which offered a playful hint pointing toward “the most consumed vegetable in the world.” The category spans a mix of food, drink and even an unconventional scientific application of the starchy vegetable, requiring players to think beyond potatoes’ most obvious culinary uses.

The purple group, traditionally the most conceptually challenging category each day, focuses on household products commonly used to remove stains, according to NME. This category proved particularly tricky given that several of its answers overlap in form or ingredients with other categories in the puzzle, requiring players to carefully distinguish between similar-sounding household staples used for entirely different everyday purposes.

Spoiler warning: The full answer set for today’s Connections puzzle follows below.

The complete answers for NYT Connections puzzle number 1,169, published Sunday, Aug. 23, 2026, are as follows, according to Forbes and Parade:

Yellow Group — Potentially Explosive Things: POWDER KEG, TIME BOMB, TINDERBOX, VOLCANO

Green Group — Double Vowels: ANTIFREEZE, BAZAAR, SKIING, VACUUM

Blue Group — Made With Potatoes: HOME FRIES, POTATO BATTERY, VICHYSSOISE, VODKA

Purple Group — Household Stain Removers: BAKING SODA, CLUB SODA, HYDROGEN PEROXIDE, VINEGAR

The blue category proved to be one of the more educational groupings of the day, requiring solvers to recognize a wider range of potato-derived items than the food-focused connections typically found in the puzzle. HOME FRIES represents the most familiar entry as a common breakfast side dish, while VICHYSSOISE, a chilled potato and leek soup, adds a more refined culinary reference to the mix. VODKA, which can be distilled from potatoes among other base ingredients, rounds out the more conventional food and drink entries, while POTATO BATTERY stands out as the category’s most unexpected inclusion, referencing the well-known science experiment in which a raw potato can be used to generate a small electrical current.

The purple category’s stain-remover theme created significant potential for confusion given the presence of overlapping “V” words and household substances elsewhere in the grid. BAKING SODA, CLUB SODA, HYDROGEN PEROXIDE and VINEGAR are all commonly used as household cleaning agents capable of lifting stains from fabric or surfaces, but several of those words could plausibly have been mistaken for ingredients tied to the potato-based blue category or the double-vowel green category instead, a deliberate design choice consistent with how the puzzle typically embeds decoys to challenge solvers.

For players hoping to preserve a winning streak or avoid accidentally spoiling the puzzle for themselves, Connections resets at midnight local time each day, consistent with the New York Times’ broader approach to its daily puzzle offerings, meaning today’s puzzle and its answers will remain the same for all players regardless of time zone, while a fresh puzzle becomes available starting at each individual player’s local midnight.