iOS 27 beta code hints at dual-battery iPhone

Code discovered in a beta version of Apple's upcoming mobile operating system explicitly references an iPhone with multiple batteries, a significant departure from the single-battery design of all current models and a strong indicator that the company's long-rumored folding phone is nearing release. The code was found in the fourth developer beta of iOS 27, which was released on July 20, 2026.

The new code strings, which relate to battery health monitoring, use plural phrasing such as, "The batteries in this iPhone are performing as expected," and, "The health of the batteries in this iPhone has significantly degraded." Another string references a scenario where "one of the batteries" is not a genuine Apple component. This wording is not present in the settings for any existing iPhone, all of which refer to a single battery.

While the code could theoretically support other multi-battery architectures, such as a dual-cell design for faster charging, analysts and industry observers widely interpret it as evidence for a folding iPhone, often referred to in rumors as the iPhone Ultra. A book-style folding smartphone typically houses a separate battery cell in each half of the device...