Apple’s New CEO Unveils the Foldable iPhone Duo
Apple on Wednesday introduced the iPhone Duo, its first foldable iPhone, marking the most radical physical redesign of its flagship device since the original iPhone in 2007 and the first major product launch under new CEO John Ternus. The phone starts at $1,999 and arrives October 23, NPR reported.
The announcement, made at Apple’s “Surprise and Shine” event at Apple Park in Cupertino, California, caps a consequential year for the company. Ternus succeeded Tim Cook as chief executive on September 1, and analysts have framed the folding phone as a statement about his product-first leadership.
A Leadership Transition, and a Bet on Design
Cook stepped down after roughly 15 years at the helm, a tenure in which Apple’s market value grew nearly 13-fold but critics said its gadgets lost the “wow factor” of the Steve Jobs era. Cook, who became executive chairman of the board, has been praised for his operational acumen and for expanding Apple’s manufacturing footprint in China.
Ternus, 51, is a mechanical engineer by training who spent most of his career on the product side of Apple. Nearly an hour into Wednesday’s livestream, he echoed a trademark Jobs line — “But actually, there is one more thing” — before revealing the Duo. “iPhone Duo brings an entirely new design while preserving everything you love and expect from iPhone,” Ternus said. “It gives you the largest display ever on an iPhone while still fitting easily in your pocket.”
Two Displays, One Design
As Fortune reported, the device has a 7.6-inch inner display when opened — roughly 50% larger than the iPhone 18 Pro Max — and a 5.4-inch outer display when closed that offers 90% of the screen area of the iPhone 18 Pro. The unit is about the size of a passport.
According to Apple’s official announcement, the phone is the thinnest iPhone ever made when open, with a grade 5 titanium enclosure, a mirror-polished finish, and a precision hinge engineered from more than 100 components. It runs on the new A20 Pro chip, built on a 2-nanometer process, paired with a dual-battery architecture that Apple says delivers up to 31 hours of video playback on the inner display and 44 hours on the outer. Touch ID is integrated into the side button, and the device ships with iOS 27.1, which introduces side-anchored controls and Split View multitasking — two apps side by side on an iPhone for the first time.
Pricing climbs quickly: the Duo starts at $1,999 for 256GB and reaches $3,199 for a 2TB model. Apple’s traditional bar-shaped iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max also debut, starting at $1,199 and $1,299 — each a $100 increase over last year.
Late to Foldables, Banking on Polish
Apple is arriving roughly seven years after competitors. Samsung and Huawei have sold foldable phones since 2019, though early models were plagued by durability problems. Even so, analysts question how large the market is. Jason Snell, who writes about Apple at Six Colors, told NPR that foldable phone sales make up only around 2% of the global smartphone market — about 2.2% of units this year, according to IDC.
“Folding phones are a solid category, but they’re not a huge category,” Snell said. “I think Apple will do a lot to popularize it, but even so, I think it’s a niche product, and if it’s the future of the smartphone, it’s probably the far future.”
Apple’s history suggests it can still win by being a fast follower. The first iPhone arrived more than two decades after the earliest cellular phones, and Apple has long used superior polish to claim categories it entered late. Michael Gartenberg, an analyst and former Apple marketing employee, told Fortune that Wednesday “was a good event for Apple and a good start for the new CEO,” adding: “Despite being late to market compared to Samsung and Google, Apple has delivered a solid first generation of foldables.”
The AI Question Looms
The most consequential part of the announcement may not be the hinge at all. Apple said iOS 27 and its overhauled Siri AI will roll out in beta on September 14, with the assistant drawing on personal context across messages, emails, and photos, and acting onscreen. Apple positions the iPhone — and the Duo’s larger canvas — as an “intelligent personal hub.”
The pitch is a bet on on-device AI rather than cloud-based chatbots. “Apple is betting that Siri can become an invisible intelligence layer connecting context, personalization, and privacy across the ecosystem,” Dipanjan Chatterjee, a vice president and principal analyst at Forrester, told NPR. “Apple has spent years promising a smarter Siri. Now the bill has come due.”
Apple has been criticized for moving slowly on artificial intelligence while rivals raced ahead, and Siri AI will not initially be available in the EU on iOS. The company has also leaned on Google’s AI technology to power some products.
Market Headwinds and the Price Tag
The Duo lands in a tougher economic climate. Rising prices for memory chips, driven by soaring demand for AI computing, have pushed up component costs across the industry. Apple has raised prices on Macs, iPads, and home devices, and Cook described the memory squeeze in July as a “100-year flood” event.
Philip Michaels, a freelance tech writer who follows Apple, told NPR the market is “the biggest risk,” noting that wages are flat and component prices are rising. “Are people going to be convinced to buy a new phone, particularly when the main driver appears to be software features that are going to be available on current phones?” he asked.
The Duo’s $1,999 price is comparable to Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold8 at $1,899.99 and the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra at $2,099.99. Analysts say much will depend on whether carriers offer subsidies to offset the cost.
Investors responded with caution. Apple shares dipped during most of the near-80-minute presentation before recovering to close slightly higher, up less than 1% in after-hours trading, according to Fortune.
What’s Next
Pre-orders for the iPhone Duo begin October 16 at 5 a.m. PT, with availability on October 23 in more than 70 countries and regions, followed by 28 more on October 30. Notably, Apple’s base iPhone 18 is not expected until spring 2027 — a break from its standard simultaneous launch — a move Bank of America analysts say could support higher average selling prices but risks price-sensitive buyers delaying upgrades.
The Duo is the clearest signal yet of what Ternus’s Apple will look like: a company betting that craftsmanship and vertical integration can carry it into new categories, even when it arrives late. Whether that bet pays off may hinge less on the hinge, and more on whether the AI inside it lives up to years of promises.