While everyone else is making foldable phones, it's now thought that Apple is working on a foldable MacBook of some sort instead.

Rumours of Apple making a foldable iPhone haven't been that easy to come across of late, but that might be because it's turned its attention away from making a phone that folds in half to focus on making a foldable laptop instead.

A report by industry watchers at The Elec claims that Apple has "started [a] development project in the early 20-inch range", with 20.25 inches seemingly the number the company has settled on.

If that's accurate, the report believes that the 20 inches is the size of the device when the display is fully unfolded and while that could potentially be a tablet, it's thought that Apple intends to create something that has a display and keyboard layout similar to a laptop computer.

"Given that the screen size is in the early 20 inches when unfolded, it is highly likely that this project product will be in a form close to a MacBook", the report notes. Adding that the device would likely have a screen size of around 15.3 inches when folded. That puts it right around the 16-inch MacBook Pro mark in terms of screen size, and is considerably larger than any iPad made to date.

If Apple is indeed making a foldable laptop we have to assume that it plans for one half of the screen to become a touch-based keyboard, similar to the one that is used on iPhones and iPads. How ergonomic that will be isn't clear, nor are frequent typists likely to enjoy the experience of tapping on glass for any length of time.

None of this is going to happen soon, though. The report says that Apple intends to have a product ready by 2026 or 2027, meaning there is plenty of time for the product to change course between now and launch - and for more leaks to happen, too.

This isn't the first time that a foldable MacBook Pro with a 20-inch screen has been rumoured, of course. Display analyst Ross Young suggested such a thing was in the works earlier this year, too.