iPhone Duo represents a major product shift for Apple; expected to be highly successful among foldables within a year.

Our tech spotlight is all Apple. The company held its surprising shine product launch event. Oh, it's got to be the new iPhone duo, which I thought they were going to call the iPhone Ultra.

They come out and they called it a duo. It's a new 5.4-in phone that unfolds into what looks like an iPad mini-shaped device from Apple. And that's incredibly exciting. There've been rumors about this for a long time.

The foldable genre has been around for 7 years, give or take. And this is the first time Apple's taken a serious shot at actually uh launching one of their own. So that's incredibly exciting. It's a whole new category for them.

I mean, we talk about the price points. I don't know if they released the price points. I know we were worried how much it might cost, but the idea, too, was that it will have offerings that other foldable companies will not when we think about the competitive landscape.

Oh, absolutely. I mean, the biggest thing with Apple is its ecosystem, right? You can kind of see it in how they've integrated all their products together, and they've got this halo product, this uh iPhone duo, this folding phone.

It's going to be very expensive. The event actually, as I logged on here, was still ongoing. I hadn't seen the price, but the leak suggests it's going to be about $2,000, which would be in line for a premium fold at this price, pretty consistent with what Samsung's offering, with what Google's offering.

And look, Apple has always played at the premium end of the market. So this might just be an opportunity for them to squeeze more from their most affluent customers. And that's a pretty good business strategy they've got.

Pretty solid market share, and the prices of pretty much everything are going up. So uh what what's a more expensive phone in this environment?

So look, I mean, they talked about the A20 Pro chip that will power the iPhone duo and says that the iPhone duo is eSim only worldwide.

Well, A20 Pro is a is a significant improvement over the A19 Pro, the one that was powering the iPhone 17 Pro that released last year. Now, it's got some extra neural cores. Very exciting.

There's extra cores, excuse me, efficiency and performance cores. That's footage that you're showing there from the Pro announcement including a vapor chamber for better cooling.

It's supposed to be more efficient, improve the quality of your overall experience. It's really designed to optimize for AI, which Apple leaned pretty heavily into in this announcement.

In fact, they described the iPhone as your intelligent personal hub and I think they see this iteration, the iPhone duo, as being sort of the peak version of this personal hub because it combines both the iPhone that we're used to with the content consumption that comes from something like a like an iPad mini.

So, I I think it matters. I don't think most folks are cracking open their phones and looking at the chips in them, but they do care about performance. They do care about battery life and I guess we'll see if they care about AI.

And you'll be able to use the Apple Pencil with it as well. You know, my son really likes the pencil for the iPad and this is almost as you said, once it opens, it's almost [music] like an iPad mini. So, pretty exciting there to get that piece.

We also hear more about the other phones and they're really looking for the premium phones and by splitting the launch or cycle of phones, what they're doing is front-loading the more expensive models, which I think was interesting as well.

Maybe a John Turnus thought. It's interesting that they're doing it this way, but some more on the phones and final thoughts.

Oh, absolutely. So, they announced the iPhone 18 Pro and the iPhone 18 Pro Max, so the smaller one and the bigger one powered by the chip that you just noted, but what they very conspicuously did not announce was the iPhone 18.

In fact, I saw no reference to the existence of an iPhone 18. So, if you're in the market for an entry-level iPhone, the sort of iPhone that maybe has a 60 Hz screen instead of what they call promotion, which is higher refresh rate, maybe a slightly less sophisticated camera system, but comes in at a lower price point, you're going to be out of luck.

Similarly, the iPhone Air didn't get an update in this announcement. And so, really it's these Pro phones, with prices of which have gone up, I believe the uh the the smaller iPhone Pro is $1,200, used to be $1,100.

Um they're really chasing that premium market segment. So, everything that they've announced this year is starting at a pretty significantly higher price on the phone side, um than than other models that are available.

And so, we're going to have to check back in a few months. Perhaps they'll do a mid-cycle release for the Air 2 or the iPhone 18, or maybe they'll just skip it. Who knows? Seems unlikely, but it could happen.

Mhm. You know, we also have the AirPods 5 offering here, as well as a couple of watches. When it comes to the airport AirPods 5, the noise cancellation feature is 50% better. Is that going to be enough to get people to step up and buy the next set of AirPods?

I think for some it could be. Certainly, so the AirPods Pro that the the distinction between those and the regular AirPods is a rubber tip on the end, like the ones that I'm wearing here.

And that, of course, improves the quality of the seal and therefore the noise cancellation. Um but, for these non-Pro models, I think what's really going to get people going is the price.

They actually announced a pretty competitive price. I believe uh the price has either stayed the same or decreased year over year for the basic AirPods, the the AirPods 5 over the AirPods 4.

And they were very excited about that in the announcement, and they keep bringing people back to this idea that it's incredible value in these headphones, and the performance is increasing.

And, you know, at below $150, I think for a lot of Apple's customers, It's not too hard a decision to upgrade if the performance is going to be that much better. Although, I will say the wearables, the watch, the AirPods struck me as the much less exciting part of the event compared to the phones and especially the iPhone 2 or the fold.

And also John Ternus just leading this, you know, and you know, he has a product focused mind. We know that cuz he's been in that part of the story for a long time. Whether or not Apple can sort of take on the and weather the storms of this market or AI spending, but it certainly seems like they're moving forward with artificial intelligence.

As we talked about the A20 chip, which you said was more compatible with AI functions. We have the new AirPod. Um you know, as you're talking about these, you'll be able to talk to Siri hands-free, translation, things like that.

What are your thoughts about what we could see for John Ternus? I mean, we know that Tim Cook had an incredible run over about 15 years. You know, he has some big shoes to fall in some ways, right?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Tim Cook took Apple from a $300 market cap to over $3 trillion. You know, it's it's it's it's it's an absolutely cavernous shoe for any subsequent executive to fill.

But I will say, if you want to know where somebody's going, ask where they've been. Steve Jobs, Apple CEO before Tim Cook, very much a design guy. Tim Cook, very much an operator.

He built out their supply chain into one of the most impressive, if not the most impressive in the world. And Ternus, as you said, product guy. VP hardware. He's he's here to he's here to to reinvigorate Apple's products.

And I think that's going to be really exciting for folks cuz you got to remember that when Apple enters this space, they can sometimes fundamentally transform it and create it.

So maybe we'll see an explosion in foldables, which comprise a very small percentage of phones shipped. We're talking tens of millions, maybe 20 million phones a year across all makers with Apple selling 250 million odd iPhones in a given year, even a small percentage of those being these foldable duos, that's going to be significant.

We can talk about other product categories, like the iPad, the Apple Watch, the AirPods, all of which are category defining. AirPods are almost a $20 billion a year business, um depending on on who you ask, which analyst you talk to.

That's massive. So, Apple needs a couple more product wins like that, and they'll keep notching them if uh Turnus lives up to expectations, and I wish him the best.

Okay, and just I am getting some uh breaking news on the numbers. I had just seen them. $1,999 for the duo. It starts here 256 gigs up to 2 terabytes. Uh it will begin pre-orders on the 16th.

It will be available on October 23rd. As far as the Pro Max, folks, that comes in at $1,299, and that's available September 18th. So, you can get that more quickly.

Uh just your final thoughts here on how much of an upgrade people are going to do, the you know, the addressable market here, because we know now it's going to have better memory.

It's going to be faster. It has a triple lens. All these kinds of things that woo people in. The 17 did very well, and we started to hear more and more about demand in China and things like that for the 17.

So, what how do you feel the 18 Pro, Pro Max, the duo, how will these do? Will there be you know, is this sort of the next moment for Apple? Is this an X moment for Apple?

I think absolutely. So, go back to 2017, the iPhone 10. That was a fundamental change. They ditched the home button. They changed their design, and that design echoes through these past 9 years.

And now with the iPhone duo, I would argue this is the biggest change they've made to the iPhone at least since the iPhone 10. So, it's a it's going to be a a turning point, a fork in the road, pick your metaphor, uh for Apple.

Can they chase the super tippy top of the smartphone market? Although, I believe the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra started actually at a higher price point than this. I think it it launched at $2,100 instead of $2,000.

So, it's not the the absolute peak of smartphone price. We have been here before, but with Apple moving the volume of phones that they do, with their premium clientele, with their existing US market share, I mean, I could very much see this as as being a a way to move pretty significant numbers of these foldable phones.

And I'll add, people are getting pretty used to financing these devices. So, perhaps that $2,000 that is a pretty pretty indicative of a sticker shock, I think, in a lot of folks, might be spread out over a significant period.

And they did actually announce a a leasing program. I think it's called Apple Upgrade uh to allow people to spread the cost of these new phones out. So, for the traditional enthusiast who values AI capabilities, they want the cooling of the vapor chamber, they want the triple camera setup, I think the the Pro and the Pro Max is going to be very appealing to them, even if it is a bit of an incremental update.

But for folks who have been waiting for a very long time for the phone of the future, for Apple to enter this this foldable era, I think I think the iPhone duo is is is going to be big.

I think it's going to be, if not the best-selling foldable over the next uh year or so, I expect it'll get pretty close.

Yeah, because there are there's competition. You have Google, you have Samsung, you have, what I understand, Xiaomi and also Huawei, who also each have, you know, foldable phones.

So, there is a competitive landscape, but as you said, you think it's going to be the best foldable iPhone. So, that'll be really interesting. And also the talk that this is now going to be viewed as a luxury type of item.

You even can now pair your phone number, from what I understand. Maybe you want the foldable for if you go out at night or something versus the I the Pro Max for daytime or something like that.

Um so, it'll be interesting to see if people choose to do that and have two phones. I might sign up for that.

Jeremy, it's great to see you. Jeremy Roberts, I look forward to another conversation with you soon about all of this. Apple has just come off its session lows. It is right now down about 1.2% we'll continue to keep you updated on all things Apple.