Apple Takes a New Turn with Tech CEO John Ternus

While Apple has long been associated with the dazzling heights of technology, critics and disgruntled fans have grumbled for some time about a perceived lack of innovation since former CEO Tim Cook took over from Steve Jobs in 2011.

Cook’s transformation of Apple into the industry-leading powerhouse that it is today goes some way toward undercutting those critiques, but the grain of truth they contain may have spurred the company’s next choice of leader, John Ternus.

A tech man through and through, Ternus joined Apple’s product design team in 2001 and became a vice president of Hardware Engineering 12 years later. In 2021, he joined Apple’s executive team as senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, ultimately leading to his appointment as Tim Cook’s successor as CEO of Apple, announced in April this year and effective from last month.

Which explains Apple’s big announcement this week and its most significant departure from the company’s status quo in at least a decade: the iPhone Duo. It represents Apple’s entry into the foldable smartphone market, a move long anticipated but long unrealized.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39BalPDuTo0

Apple Enters the Foldables Market

While the development work largely occurred during Cook’s tenure as CEO, the fact that the Duo featured during Ternus’s first major product event is very likely indicative of the direction he intends to take Apple in. Indeed, Ternus would have had a direct hand in the Duo’s development as one of Apple’s top hardware executives.

The foldable market is already well established, with Apple competitors like South Korea’s Samsung and China’s Huawei producing the Galaxy Z Fold and the Mate X6 respectively. However, industry watchers expected iPhone to raise the bar in terms of quality, and it appears to have done just that.

Addressing those assembled at Apple’s headquarters in California, Ternus took aim at alternatives, saying that “others” have created foldables that “just feel like two phones awkwardly stuck together”.

He described the iPhone Duo as the result of “a series of remarkable innovations that we believe will redefine the experience of using a foldable phone”.

Inspired by another of Apple’s products, the iPad, the iPhone Duo boasts the largest screen yet found on an iPhone. While it is composed of cutting-edge components in every regard, including the A20 Pro chip and a dual-battery system, it is the screen that sets it apart.

The 7.6-inch display is 50% larger than the screen of the iPhone 18 Pro Max, also announced this week. As might be expected, the hinge features over 100 distinct parts to ensure that the specially designed screen is seamless, entirely uninterrupted.

Of course, time will tell if the screen remains crease-free after a couple of years of use. It is a problem that other foldables have struggled with for years now.

As also might be expected, the price tag attached to the Duo is hefty. In America, prices start at $1,999 (€1,720) and rise to $3,199 (€2,750) at the upper end. However, despite the conversion rates appearing to favor Europeans, because of different variables like national tax policies and VAT rates, the approximate cost for the lowest-tier Duo will be €2,300 ($2,670), rising to €3,800 ($4,415).

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Playing It Safe

Alongside the Duo, Apple made its more conventional announcements. The iPhone 18 Pro and the aforementioned 18 Pro Max featured alongside the Apple Watch Series 12. The watch’s key update, focused on in the promotional material, was the “all-new Health Sensing System”, which the company claims delivers the most accurate heart rate sensing in a wearable. The Apple Watch Series 12 is said to also provide insights into stress and recovery with more frequent heart rate variability readings.

The final products unveiled in this year’s “Surprise and Shine” Apple event were a separate version of the Apple Watch, the Ultra 4, and the latest generation of its popular earphones, the AirPods 5. In keeping with the AirPods trajectory, the highlighted feature this time around is enhanced noise cancellation capabilities, potentially removing up to 50% more external noise than the AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation.

As evidenced by the lineup, Apple continues to play it safe with the tried and tested products that the market has demonstrated its appetite for time and again. But the Duo represents something new for the American tech giant. While not an entirely new technology – Microsoft’s foldable was similarly named the Surface Duo – it perhaps represents a renewed willingness to tackle hardware beyond its staples.

Apple enthusiasts will be eager to see where Ternus takes the brand next.