On Wednesday, Apple took the wraps off its latest iteration of iPhones, among them a foldable model — dubbed the Duo — that had been the subject of considerable anticipation.

John Ternus, the company’s newly installed CEO, who assumed the reins from Tim Cook on Sept. 1, unveiled the latest lineup at the company’s Cupertino, California headquarters.

Having cycled through a succession of further updates pertaining to the iPhone, the Apple Watch and AirPods, Ternus apprised the audience assembled within the Steve Jobs Theater that “actually there is one more thing,” an oblique homage to the trademark locution of Jobs—a phrase the company’s legendary late founder had himself appropriated from the 1970s detective series “Columbo.”

Ternus remarked that the foldable phone boasts “the largest display ever on an iPhone, yet fits into your pocket.”

The phone unfolds to reveal a 7.6-inch display—80% larger than that of the newest iPhone 18 Pro.

It will afford users the ability to employ an Apple Pencil on the phone, a capability hitherto confined to iPad users.

Duo, Ternus remarked, “will redefine the experience of using a foldable phone.”

The Duo permits users to bifurcate the screen so as to operate two discrete applications on the device, or two windows of the selfsame website for purposes such as comparison shopping.

Priced from $1,999, it is the most expensive iPhone to date.

The Duo “was always going to eclipse Apple’s other announcements at the event,” said Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight.

“The device adds a distinctive new design to the iPhone lineup and marks the company’s entry into the niche foldable smartphone category.”

Wood remarked that, while demand for the Duo—priced below what some analysts had foreseen—is assured, foldables nonetheless constitute under 5% of the smartphone market at large.

The iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max, Ternus said, bring improvements to the battery, camera, and performance.

They will start at $1,199 and $1,299, respectively.

Customers can preorder the phones starting on Sept. 12 and they will be available on Sept. 18, although the Duo will be available on Oct. 23.

The novel models boast a protracted battery life — 45 hours of video playback for the Pro Max — alongside accelerated charging capabilities.

The camera delivers what Apple has termed “cinematic effects” derived from conventional video captured on the device, in addition to novel options for manual controls and “smart focus tracking,” which enables users to train their focus upon a solitary moving subject, such as a child during a soccer match.

Concurrently, Apple is directing its attention toward Siri's nascent AI capabilities in conjunction with the new handsets, foregrounding privacy and security as a means of distinguishing itself from competitors who have advanced further in their integration of AI.

Numerous of Apple's most redoubtable competitors—Samsung, Motorola, and Google among them—have already unveiled foldable smartphones.

Apple, however, is scarcely given to precipitate embraces of nascent technologies.

“The foldable launch is vintage Apple: bide one’s time until the product has ironed out its kinks and the market evinces glimmers of viability, then enter and mould the category,” said Forrester analyst Dipanjan Chatterjee.

Yet, he appended, the crux will be whether it can galvanise demand for what remains a niche product category.

Relative to preceding iterations, the iPhone 18 commands a premium of approximately $100, attributable in part to a worldwide dearth of memory chips.

The iPhone 17, contingent upon the variant, is priced between $799 and $1,999.

Earlier this year, Apple unveiled a suite of artificial intelligence advancements, encompassing enhancements to its Siri assistant, underscoring an emphasis on privacy and quotidian utility as the company endeavours to close the gap with its rivals in the AI domain.

For Ternus, the keynote address represented nothing less than the occasion on which to set the tone for his vision of Apple’s future, Chatterjee said.

“John Ternus inherits what may well be the most triumphant consumer-technology juggernaut of the modern era.

This constitutes simultaneously a windfall and an onus for him.

The execution, scale, and monetization that Tim Cook honed to near-perfection have set a formidable benchmark, and Ternus must needs prolong that run,” Chatterjee said.

“Yet he must sustain that momentum whilst positioning Apple to disrupt itself in the proximate future, when the iPhone — or any smartphone, for that matter — will cease to be the consumer’s principal conduit to the world.”

Wood observed that, amidst all the fanfare surrounding the Duo, Ternus’s formal ascension to the CEO role “felt like less of a story” than he had anticipated.

“This event marks a seamless transition from Tim Cook, and its timing to coincide with the iPhone Duo was undoubtedly planned,” Wood said.

“However, notwithstanding the media frenzy surrounding this new device, it is the broader strength of Apple’s hardware, software and services that will drive the company forward.”