Apple held its “Surprise and Shine” event on September 9th at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino, and it was the first keynote under new CEO John Ternus, who officially took over from Tim Cook on September 1st after 15 years at the helm.
Ternus spent over a decade running Apple’s hardware engineering before stepping into this role, so there was a lot of “what’s he going to do differently” energy going into this. Turns out: quite a bit.
iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max
Ternus opened with the Pro lineup before getting to the foldable. Visually, the 18 Pro doesn’t stray far from last year’s design. It’s the general shape but with 2 new colors: glacier and a pretty burgundy. Under the hood is where the real changes are: a new A20 Pro chip, built on 2nm process technology, which Apple says gives a 40% bump in graphics performance and a redesigned thermal system to keep it from overheating during heavier tasks like gaming. Charging got faster too where Apple’s is claiming 50% battery in five minutes.
But the headline feature across the whole 18 lineup is Siri AI. This isn’t the “hey Siri, set a timer” assistant anymore. It’s now being positioned as a full personal chatbot, one that can pull context from your texts, emails, and photos to actually answer questions like “what did my dad text me this weekend about the flight?” Apple says it works across more than 300,000 apps and can complete tasks inside them, not just fetch information. There’s also a new Camera mode where Siri can pull details straight from a photo such as, pointing at a flyer to add an event to your calendar.
Both the 18 Pro and Pro Max got a $100 price increase over last year’s models.
New iOS 27
All of this new hardware ships with iOS 27, which Apple confirmed will roll out to everyone on September 14th. It’s been in beta since WWDC back in June, so a lot of this won’t be brand new to anyone who’s been testing it, but here’s what’s actually shipping:
Siri AI is the centerpiece, and it goes beyond just the assistant itself. There’s a new System Orchestrator connecting Apple Intelligence features together, so Siri can now hold conversation history, take follow-up questions, and work with text input instead of just voice. Visual Intelligence the feature that lets you point your camera at something and get information and it now lives inside a dedicated Siri mode in the Camera app, and you can even feed Siri a screenshot for context on a question.
Photos got two new editing tools: Extend, which generates content beyond a photo’s original edges, and Spatial Reframe, which lets you shift the perspective of a shot after the fact. Messages, Mail, and Calendar are also getting smarter about context. The idea being they can suggest actions or build a calendar event just from a casual description you type or say.
iOS 27 is compatible back to the iPhone 11, though the full Apple Intelligence features are reserved for newer hardware.
The Foldable: iPhone Duo
This is the one everyone’s going to remember from this event. Apple’s first-ever foldable phone is called the iPhone Duo, and it’s the biggest change to the iPhone since it launched almost 20 years ago.
Closed, it’s about the size of a passport with a 5.4-inch outer screen. Open it up and you get one continuous 7.6-inch display. Based on what I saw, there’s no visible crease interruption, just a single screen you can use in landscape or portrait. Apple’s making a point of putting the controls (dock, status bar) on the right side of the screen instead of the bottom, which is a small detail but a smart one if you’re actually using this thing one-handed while it’s unfolded.
Ternus took a not-so-subtle jab at the competition while introducing it, saying other foldables feel like they’re “put together” rather than designed as one device. Fair or not, Apple’s clearly positioning the Duo as the foldable that actually feels considered, not just a phone with a hinge bolted on.
Price: $1,999 to start. Preorders open October 16th, in stores October 23rd.
My Take on the Duo
Here’s where I land on this thing, because a few questions came to mind immediately.
First, where does the case go or how does it go on? Foldable’s are already tricky to protect since you’ve got a fold and “technically” two separate screen surfaces to worry about, and Apple hasn’t shown a single case option yet. Until I see how they’re solving that, I’m not sold because this is something you can actually use day-to-day without babying it if it’s protected.
Second, the glass is A 7.6-inch continuous screen sounds great in a keynote, but foldable displays have a track record of scratching more easily than a standard iPhone screen. Apple didn’t say much about the durability of the fold itself, and that’s the part I want to see in real-world use, not a stage demo.
Now this looks a lot like Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold. The passport-sized closed form, the book-style unfold, even the price range is close to what Samsung’s charging. Apple’s taking their time to enter this category usually means they’ve refined something rivals got wrong, but from what’s been shown so far, the concept itself isn’t new. The execution is what needs to prove itself.
What was also announced
Apple rounded out the lineup with a few more updates. The Apple Watch Series 12 got a new feature called Audio Intelligence. AirPods 5 were officially unveiled as well. The AirPods with built-in cameras that were rumored for this event got pushed back and didn’t make the cut today.
Price increases across the lineup seem to be an unavoidable part of this cycle, between chip shortages and rising component costs. Apple’s response to that has been to introduce a leasing program across many of its products, giving people a way to get the latest hardware without paying the full price upfront.
So what’s next?
The Duo could genuinely be a success honestly. Apple deciding to wait this long to enter the foldable space usually means they’ve solved the problems everyone else rushed past. That single continuous screen and thoughtful control placement suggest they weren’t interested in just checking a box. But at $1,999 to start, that price tag puts it out of range for most smartphone shoppers. This isn’t a phone most people are casually upgrading into. It’s a purchase for people already sold on the idea of a foldable, or ones who buy Apple’s most expensive option on principle.
What makes this event different from every other iPhone launch is who was standing on stage. This was the first iPhone event since Tim Cook stepped down as CEO, and Ternus’s fingerprints were all over it. This gives it an engineer’s approach to introducing an engineer’s kind of product. Whether that becomes a pattern for how Apple operates going forward, or just how this one event happened to go, is the real story to watch from here.
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