Apple Products That Don't Exist (But Really Should)

Apple Is Worth $3 Trillion. So Why Are These Products Still Missing?

Apple is the most valuable company on the planet. It has more cash reserves than most countries have in their GDP. Its design language has reshaped entire industries. And yet, in 2025, you still can't buy an Apple printer, an Apple doorbell, or an Apple fitness band. You can't fold an Apple phone in half. You can't shoot RAW on an Apple-made camera with a full-frame sensor. These are not niche requests — they are logical extensions of what Apple already does well. This article breaks down the Apple products that don't exist yet, why each one makes sense, what the real obstacles are, and which ones are actually worth waiting for.

Let's be direct: not everything on this list is equally likely. Some are coming soon. Some are business non-starters. And one — the most tantalising of all — may already exist in a vault somewhere under Apple Park.

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The Apple Products Most Likely to Actually Happen

A Folding iPhone Is Coming — The Question Is Whether It Will Be Worth It

Samsung has been making foldable phones since 2019. Google entered the space with the Pixel Fold. Even OnePlus and Motorola have credible entries. Apple, as of mid-2025, still hasn't shipped one — but credible supply chain reports suggest a foldable iPhone is in late-stage development and could land before the end of the year.

The real question isn't if Apple makes a foldable iPhone. It's whether it will justify the premium. Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold series starts above £1,700. Early foldables suffered from fragile hinges, visible screen creases, and bloated software. Apple typically enters markets late and wins on polish — but the bar has risen considerably. Consumers who buy a folding iPhone will expect it to work flawlessly on day one, not after three hardware generations.

The most exciting use case? A large-screen experience in a compact form factor — essentially an iPad mini that fits in your pocket. If Apple can nail the hinge, eliminate the crease, and integrate it tightly with iOS, this could genuinely be the foldable that moves the mainstream market.

Bottom line: Worth watching. Don't buy a competitor's foldable while waiting, but set realistic expectations for a first-gen Apple product.

AR Glasses: Apple's Next Platform Shift

Apple Vision Pro was the company's first step into spatial computing — a $3,499 step that most people couldn't afford and wouldn't wear on the Tube. But it was never meant to be a consumer product in the traditional sense. It was a developer and enthusiast device designed to build an ecosystem before the real hardware arrived.

That real hardware is likely AR glasses: lightweight, glasses-form-factor devices that overlay digital information onto the real world without isolating you from it. Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses have shown that consumers will actually wear technology on their face — if it looks normal. Google tried this with Glass in 2013 and failed largely because the design was conspicuous and the use cases were underdeveloped.

Apple's advantage is the iPhone. Any Apple AR glasses will almost certainly be tethered to — or deeply integrated with — the iPhone's processing power, camera system, and app ecosystem. That's a significant head start over standalone competitors.

Bottom line: This is a long game. Don't expect AR glasses before 2026 at the earliest, but this is arguably Apple's most important product category of the decade.

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The Apple Products That Make Too Much Sense to Ignore

A Home Hub With a Screen

Apple's HomePod sounds genuinely excellent. The spatial audio is impressive. But in a market where Amazon Echo Show and Google Nest Hub have normalised touchscreen home hubs, the HomePod feels deliberately limited. You can ask Siri to dim the lights. You can't see your smart home layout, drag a slider, or glance at your front door camera feed without picking up your phone.

A HomePod with a screen isn't a radical idea — it's table stakes for the smart home category. Apple has the HomeKit ecosystem, the design capability, and the software to make this the most elegant home hub on the market. The missing piece is the hardware itself.

Pair a screen-equipped HomePod with a first-party Apple doorbell and security camera — both of which are also conspicuously absent — and Apple suddenly has a coherent home security and automation suite. Right now, that space is owned by Ring (Amazon) and Nest (Google). Apple is handing those companies a market it could plausibly dominate.

Bottom line: A screenless smart speaker in 2025 is a hard sell. Apple needs to make this move, and soon.

An Apple Fitness Band — No Subscription, No Excuses

The Apple Watch is a genuinely great product. It is also expensive, relatively bulky, and requires daily charging. For users who want continuous health tracking — sleep, recovery, heart rate variability, blood oxygen — without the overhead of a full smartwatch, there's currently no Apple option.

Whoop has built a loyal following around exactly this use case. Its knit band is comfortable enough to sleep in, its sensors are sophisticated, and its recovery insights are genuinely useful. The catch: a mandatory subscription that costs £239 per year. Fitbit's basic trackers are cheaper but lack depth.

Apple could enter this space with a screenless, lightweight fitness puck in a premium band — no subscription, just data that feeds into the Health app. It would undercut Whoop on price, outclass Fitbit on software integration, and give Apple Watch a logical companion product rather than a competitor.

Bottom line: This won't happen while Apple Watch sales remain strong. But if wearable fatigue sets in, don't be surprised if Apple pivots.

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The Apple Products That Are Technically Brilliant (And Commercially Questionable)

An Apple Camera With a Full-Frame Sensor

This is the most technically fascinating item on the list. The iPhone 16 Pro's camera system is genuinely remarkable — computational photography, ProRes video, 48MP sensors, and Apple's image signal processor make it competitive with dedicated cameras in many scenarios. But it operates within the physical constraints of a phone chassis. The sensor is small. The lenses are fixed. The physics are limiting.

Now imagine Apple silicon — the same chips that transformed the Mac — combined with a large-format, full-frame sensor and interchangeable lenses. The computational photography capabilities alone would be unlike anything currently on the market. Canon, Sony, and Nikon have decades of optical engineering expertise, but none of them have Apple's chip design capabilities or software integration.

The commercial problem: the dedicated camera market has been declining for years, largely because of smartphones. Apple would be entering a shrinking market that requires significant optical engineering investment and ongoing lens ecosystem development. It's a hard business case, even for a $3 trillion company.

Bottom line: A fascinating concept that won't happen anytime soon — but the technology to make it extraordinary already exists within Apple.

An Apple Printer (Yes, Really)

This might sound absurd. But think about it: printers are notoriously terrible. They jam. They run out of ink at the worst possible moment. Their software is a relic of the early 2000s. They refuse to connect to Wi-Fi for no discernible reason.

Apple has fixed terrible product categories before. The original iMac made personal computers approachable. AirPods made wireless earbuds mainstream. The Apple Watch made smartwatches desirable. If any company has the design discipline and software capability to make a printer that actually works the way it should, Apple is the strongest candidate.

Realistic? Probably not. The margins are low, the manufacturing complexity is high, and the ink cartridge business model — which is where printer companies actually make their money — runs counter to Apple's premium hardware approach. But as a thought experiment, it's more compelling than it first appears.

Bottom line: Don't hold your breath. But the case for it is stronger than you'd expect.

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The One Apple Product That Might Already Exist

Show Us the Apple Car

In 2024, Apple officially cancelled Project Titan — its secretive, multi-billion-dollar effort to build an autonomous electric vehicle. The project reportedly consumed over a decade of work and billions in investment. Hundreds of engineers were reassigned or let go. The car, officially, never happened.

But here's what makes this story impossible to close: in 2021, Jony Ive's design firm LoveFrom partnered with Ferrari. In 2025, Ferrari unveiled the stunning Ferrari Elettrica — a car they claim was designed from the ground up in roughly five years. That timeline is, to put it generously, compressed for a ground-up vehicle design.

The suggestion — not proven, but logical — is that design work from Apple's cancelled car project found its way into that Ferrari. Apple spent years developing vehicle design concepts, interior interfaces, and user experience frameworks for a car that never launched. That work doesn't simply disappear.

What did the Apple Car actually look like? What interface did it use? Was it truly autonomous, or a driver-assist platform? These questions may never be answered officially. But somewhere, almost certainly, there are renders, prototypes, and design files that represent one of the most ambitious unrealised products in tech history.

Bottom line: The Apple Car is gone — officially. But its design legacy may be driving around on the road already.

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What This List Tells Us About Apple's Strategy

Looking across all of these missing products, a pattern emerges. Apple doesn't enter markets it can't dominate, and it doesn't dominate markets it can't enter at scale. The folding iPhone is coming because the technology is ready and the market is proven. AR glasses are coming because Apple built Vision Pro as a platform foundation. The home hub with a screen makes obvious sense but requires Apple to admit its current HomePod is insufficient.

The products that won't happen — the printer, the standalone camera, arguably the fitness band — are either too low-margin, too niche, or too directly threatening to existing product lines that Apple needs to protect.

The Apple Car is the outlier: a product that was ambitious enough, expensive enough, and secret enough that we may never know the full story of what was built and why it was cancelled.

For consumers, the practical takeaway is this: buy the best available alternative now if you need it. Apple's entry into a market is not guaranteed, and waiting years for a hypothetical product is rarely a sound strategy. But keep your eyes on the folding iPhone and AR glasses — those are the ones that will genuinely reshape what Apple means in the second half of this decade.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is Apple making a foldable iPhone in 2025?

Multiple credible reports from supply chain analysts suggest Apple is developing a foldable iPhone, with some indicating a potential launch in late 2025 or 2026. Apple has not officially confirmed this. Expect a premium price point and a first-generation device that prioritises durability and software integration over raw screen size.

Why doesn't Apple make a fitness band to compete with Whoop?

Apple's primary fitness wearable is the Apple Watch, and a standalone fitness band would directly cannibalise that market. As long as Apple Watch sales remain healthy, there's little incentive to release a cheaper alternative. If the market shifts — or if subscription-based competitors like Whoop continue to grow — Apple's calculus may change.

What happened to the Apple Car project?

Apple officially cancelled Project Titan in early 2024 after spending an estimated $10 billion or more over roughly a decade. The project transitioned through several visions — fully autonomous vehicle, then a more conventional EV — before being shut down entirely. Many of the engineers involved were moved to Apple's generative AI teams.

Would an Apple full-frame camera actually be good?

Theoretically, yes — the combination of Apple's image signal processing, computational photography software, and Apple silicon with a large-format sensor would produce a technically exceptional camera. The barrier is commercial, not technical: the dedicated camera market is shrinking, and developing a competitive lens ecosystem requires enormous long-term investment. It is a compelling concept that is unlikely to become a real product in the near term.

Does Apple make any home security products?

As of 2025, Apple does not manufacture its own doorbell or security camera. HomeKit Secure Video supports third-party cameras from brands like Logitech, Eufy, and others, and footage can be stored privately in iCloud. However, Apple has no first-party hardware in this space, leaving a clear gap in its home ecosystem strategy.