Apple Event 2026: New $1,999 ‘Foldable’ iPhone Duo Takes Center Stage

Apple is putting AI in your pocket, on your wrist, and increasingly in the background of your day.

The company used its Sept. 9 “Surprise and Shine” event to unveil the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, the foldable iPhone Duo, the Apple Watch Series 12, and AirPods 5. The launches arrive as Apple pushes Apple Intelligence and its revamped Siri deeper across its hardware ecosystem.

The announcements also mark the first major product event under CEO John Ternus, who took over from Tim Cook on Sept. 1. Ternus used his first major keynote as CEO to introduce Apple's latest hardware lineup.

iPhone 18 Pro puts Apple's AI hardware ambitions on display

The iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max lead Apple's conventional flagship lineup this year, but the upgrades extend beyond another annual processor bump.

The new phones run on Apple's A20 Pro chip, built on a 2-nanometer process. The Verge reported that Apple has paired the new silicon with upgraded graphics and neural-processing capabilities as it continues building more computationally demanding features into the iPhone.

9to5Mac reported additional improvements to memory bandwidth and graphics performance compared with the previous generation. Those improvements matter because Apple is increasingly asking its phones to handle AI processing locally rather than sending every task to a remote data center.

That dovetails with Apple's software strategy. eWeek previously reported that iOS 27 expands Apple Intelligence deeper into Siri, Safari, Messages, Photos, Shortcuts, and other core applications.

The iPhone 18 Pro also introduces a 48-megapixel main camera with variable aperture, giving photographers greater control over depth of field and light capture.

Apple is also confronting a problem accelerated by generative AI: determining whether an image is authentic. Its new Reference Image feature uses Private Cloud Compute to create a cryptographic reference tied to an original iPhone 18 Pro photo, allowing viewers to authenticate the capture and compare it with later edits. The feature adds another tool for establishing the provenance of digital images as AI-generated and manipulated media become more difficult to distinguish from traditional photography.

The company also redesigned the phone's thermal system, including an improved vapor chamber intended to help the A20 Pro sustain higher performance for longer periods. Battery life is climbing as well, although Apple's performance claims will ultimately need to be tested under real-world conditions.

Those upgrades arrive with higher prices. The iPhone 18 Pro starts at $1,199, while the Pro Max begins at $1,299.

The higher hardware requirements could increasingly separate Apple's AI experiences by device. eWeek previously found that advanced Siri features can entail higher hardware requirements, creating a distinction between devices that generally support Apple Intelligence and those capable of handling Apple's most advanced on-device models.

iPhone Duo takes Apple into foldables

The biggest hardware shift of Apple's event is a device the company did not sell at all a year ago.

Apple unveiled the iPhone Duo, its first foldable smartphone. The book-style device has a 5.4-inch outer display and opens to reveal a 7.6-inch inner screen, the largest display yet on an iPhone. The Duo arrives more than seven years after Samsung introduced its first Galaxy Fold.

Apple is entering a market where Samsung, Google, Huawei, Oppo, Honor, Xiaomi, and others have already spent years refining folding displays. That makes Apple's move less about creating a category and more about deciding that foldables have become mature enough to put the iPhone brand behind the form factor.

The timing could still change the category's trajectory. Foldable smartphones accounted for only about 1.6% of worldwide smartphone sales in 2025, according to market figures cited by The Verge, leaving plenty of room for Apple to either accelerate adoption or discover why the format has remained relatively niche.

The iPhone Duo also gives Apple Intelligence more physical space.

A larger internal display could create additional room for multitasking and AI-assisted workflows, potentially allowing Apple to experiment with experiences that are difficult to fit onto a conventional smartphone screen. Apple has not yet demonstrated that the Duo will deliver fundamentally different AI workflows.

However, this remains a possibility rather than a confirmed advantage. That possibility fits Apple's wider software strategy. eWeek's breakdown of Apple's AI features shows the company moving away from isolated generative AI tools and toward intelligence embedded throughout the operating system.

For Apple, the Duo is therefore more than a new screen hinge. It gives the company another computing surface on which it could expand its increasingly AI-driven software strategy.

Apple Watch Series 12 makes Siri harder to ignore

Apple's most interesting AI experiment of the event may actually be happening on the wrist.

The Apple Watch Series 12 expands Siri's role with intelligence features designed to operate throughout the day. Apple's Siri Recap feature uses ambient listening to generate AI-powered summaries of audio captured during a user's day.

The watch also adds a Readiness feature that analyzes recent activity, sleep, vital signs, and other health data. Apple has also increased the frequency of background heart-rate sensing. The Series 12 runs on Apple's S11 chip and starts at $399. Preorders opened Wednesday, with availability beginning Sept. 18.

The new features illustrate a potentially different relationship between wearable devices and AI than the one users have with chatbots.

Instead of requiring users to open an app and enter a prompt, features such as Siri Recap suggest that Apple is experimenting with AI that can surface information in context from a device people may wear throughout the day.

AirPods get their next upgrade

AirPods 5 extend Apple's ecosystem to another device people may wear for hours at a time.

Apple announced the base AirPods 5 for $129 and a $149 version with a wireless charging case. AirPods 5 coverage shows Apple claiming 50% better active noise cancellation than AirPods 4, along with improved sound and on-stem volume controls on the higher-end model.

The wireless-charging version also offers up to five hours of playback with active noise cancellation enabled.

Engadget's coverage tracked the AirPods announcements alongside Apple's other hardware reveals.

AirPods remain primarily an audio product, but their place alongside the iPhone and Apple Watch gives Apple another device through which users can interact with services across its ecosystem.

What eWeek found: Apple's real product is becoming the AI ecosystem

Apple's hardware dominated the event, but the larger story is how the pieces increasingly fit together.

• AI is becoming a hardware differentiator. Apple's A20 Pro and neural-processing improvements underscore how increasingly sophisticated AI experiences depend on the silicon underneath them.
• Siri is moving beyond the iPhone. Features such as Siri Recap show Apple expanding its assistant into devices people wear, rather than treating AI primarily as a chatbot users deliberately open.
• The iPhone Duo creates a new canvas. Its 7.6-inch internal display gives Apple more room to explore multitasking and potentially new AI workflows, although Apple has not yet demonstrated a Duo-specific AI experience.
• Apple is experimenting with ambient AI. Siri Recap points to intelligence that can work with contextual information rather than relying exclusively on prompts.
• Authenticity is becoming part of Apple's AI story. Reference Image shows Apple addressing not only what generative AI can create but also how users can establish the provenance of an original photograph.
• More capable hardware is getting more expensive. The $1,199 iPhone 18 Pro demonstrates how increasingly sophisticated silicon and hardware are pushing Apple's flagship devices further into premium territory.

Apple spent the first phase of the generative AI boom trying to close a software gap with companies such as OpenAI and Google. Its strategy now appears to be moving toward a different battlefield.

Rather than trying to win with one chatbot, Apple is building intelligence into the devices people already carry and wear.

That makes today's announcements more consequential than an annual iPhone refresh. Apple's wager is that the next major AI interface may not be a website or chatbot window at all. It may be the ecosystem surrounding the user.

Also read: For more on Apple’s expanding AI strategy, see how the iOS 27 public beta brings Siri AI to more users across Apple’s ecosystem.