Going foldable has been the craze in the mobile device industry lately. With rumours of a foldable iPhone doing the rounds on the internet, leaksters have shed light on another foldable project from behind the closed doors at Cupertino – a foldable iPad. With players like Huawei, Asus and Lenovo revealing foldable laptops/tablets, Amazon couldn’t resist the craze. If the rumours are true, we might see an Amazon foldable tablet device over the next few years.
What’s even more surprising is that it could hit the showroom floors before Apple’s foldable iPad or Mac!
Before you head over to Amazon in pursuit of mining more information, note that this is an unconfirmed leak and hence, we suggest you take everything you are about to read here with a grain of salt.
Amazon foldable tablet: What is all the fuss?
The information comes courtesy of noted tipster Ming-Chi Kuo, who says that Amazon is working on a new foldable tablet device. Kuo’s research states that Apple’s foldable tablet competition “may not be limited to Huawei” and that Amazon is internally developing a “similar product”, although the proceedings have not kicked off yet.
If the development proceeds as planned, then Amazon might be ready to put it in production by late 2026 or early 2027, says Kuo. Hence, the Amazon foldable tablet might hit the shelves by mid-2027 at the earliest, which is a lot earlier than the rumoured mass production timeline for Apple’s foldable tablet device, i.e., by late 2027 or early 2028.
Will Amazon’s foldable tablet run on Android?
Sadly, Kuo doesn’t reveal any of the expected features of this rumoured Amazon tablet. If Amazon’s product history is to be considered, the possibility of its foldable tablet running Google’s Android OS are slim. Amazon’s Echo devices rely on a proprietary software ecosystem, with Alexa heading the voice assistant division. There’s a possibility that Amazon could be internally developing Fire OS to better fit the foldable UI of the tablet.
On the other hand, Apple’s rumoured foldable tablet could run an evolved version of iPadOS tailored to adapt to variable screen ratios. Given that Apple’s software ecosystem is largely evolved, will Amazon’s development team be able to do justice to its first foldable tablet?