It’s a brand new era for Apple. The company is turning over leadership for the first time in 15 years, with former CEO Tim Cook handing off the reins last week to the new CEO, former Apple VP of hardware John Ternus.
At the first Apple product soiree hosted by Ternus, the company made an even bigger change: it announced its first ever folding device, the iPhone Duo.
The company also announced its new line of iPhone 18 Pro phones, some updates to its Apple Watch line, new AirPods, and new software capabilities powered by Siri AI.
As expected, there were no base-model iPhone 18 announcements; those are likely coming early next year. There was also no mention of Vision Pro, iPads, or Macs. Apple touted new desktop Macs in August.
Here’s everything Apple showed off today.
Apple iPhone Duo
Apple’s first ever folding device is the Duo, a “passport sized” foldable iPhone. It starts at $1,999 for a model with 256 GB of storage.
It’s a product category that Apple has been working toward for a decade. Now, it hopes to do that very Apple thing where it may not be the first company to the new tech party, but it definitely aims to be the snazziest.
The Duo is a landscape style foldable, meaning it has a vertical magnetic hinge that lets you open the device like a book. Closed, it has a 5.3-inch screen on the outside. Open it up, and the landscape display is 7.7 inches. The Duo is also heavy, weighing in at 254 grams, which might be a little too hefty for some users.
The Duo is made with a titanium frame and what Apple calls a “custom polymer” screen for increased durability. It runs on Apple’s proprietary A20 Pro chip (the same chip in the new Pro-model iPhones 18) and the company’s custom C2 modem. The horizontal format also means it’s capable of running iPad-like apps, albeit ones that can adjust on the fly when folding the screen or setting the phone up at an angle. The Duo will also be able to work with the Apple Pencil Pro stylus.
On the back of the Duo are two 48-megapixel cameras, one standard, one for ultrawide shots. There are two 12-megapixel selfie cameras, one on the main screen and one on the inside when the screen is opened. The cameras can also capture 4K video.
Untypical of Apple, the Duo does not have Face ID. Instead, it uses a TouchID sensor in the power button. This is likely due to Apple’s desire to minimize the device’s bulk and allow for more components inside the device.
Like, for example, the massive battery. Apple says the iPhone Duo gets 31 hours of battery life, and up to 44 hours just using the smaller front screen. Storage options start at 256 GB for the base model, with options up to 2 terabytes of space. That top configuration puts the Duo at $3,199.
Expensive, yes, and very in line with Apple’s upward adjustment to its prices due to the memory shortage. But Apple is also keen on enticing users to rent the most premium devices with Apple Upgrade, the leasing program the company introduced in July.
For more details about the Duo, check out WIRED’s deeper look at the company’s very first foldable.
iPhone 18 Pro
As predictions suspected, Apple is not releasing its base model iPhone this year. Instead, the company focused on highlighting its new iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max.
These look almost identical to the iPhone 17 Pro models, albeit slightly smaller. The iPhone 18 Pro is 6.3 inches and the iPhone 18 Pro Max is 6.9 inches. They come in black, silver, glacier, and burgundy color options.
They come with Apple’s new A20 Pro chips, which have been repackaged into a silicone casing that can connect directly to the new redesigned vapor chamber, a design flourish that aids in keeping the components from overheating and helps the phone last longer. Wireless charging is even faster, able to juice the phone up to 50 percent battery life in 15 minutes.
The iPhone 18 Pro battery is capable of up to 36 hours of video playback per charge. The 18 Pro Max gets around 45 hours of video playback.
The 18 Pro phones are also getting juiced up with a new and improved Siri AI. There is an all new Siri AI app on the iPhone. Siri AI is rolling out as a beta in English now, and will be available in French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish in October.
Adjustable Aperture
The iPhone 18 models also get a number of big improvements to their cameras. The biggest: a variable aperture on the iPhone 18 Pro’s 48-megapixel main camera. Users can dial in their preferred aperture, which adjusts mechanically in the lens. This opens up new possibilities for shooting in different light environments, as well as adjusting the depth of field for adding real—not digital—bokeh effects to photos.
Apple is also touting improved photography and video capture controls, called Pro Controls, that let you change settings like white balance, aperture, and shutter speed. So if you’re a camera nerd, you have new software and hardware tools to play with.
Apple is also introducing Apple Reference Image, a watermarking tech that maintains an image the way it was originally shot. Apple refers to it as something close to “a digital photo negative” that you can reference if you need to prove a photo’s provenance.
The iPhone 18 Pro is $1,199, and the iPhone 18 Pro Max is $1,299. You can preorder the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max this Saturday, September 12. Apple says they’ll officially start selling September 18.
Apple Watch
Apple announced some revamps to its Apple Watch. There is a reengineered Apple Watch 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4.
Both watches get new sensor arrays. Apple’s new Health Sensing System includes LEDs that measure high-frequency heart rate data as often as every five seconds. This gives wearers a constant stream of health data all day long.
The Apple Health app gets some revisions that better track sleep and show personalized guidance about your daily readiness. This is something Google’s Pixel watches have had for a while, though Apple’s reports will benefit from its new sensor array.
Also on the watch are some features that make use of Apple’s ambient listening tech to record and log the things around you. That means the watch can transcribe the things people say and show the text right on your smartwatch’s screen. In a demonstration video today, Apple showed a server at a restaurant reciting menu specials, and the person sitting at the table was able to scroll back through a transcript of the last 15 seconds on their Apple Watch’s screen to read what the server said.
These features are opt-in—at least for the person wearing the watch—and the features that record audio will emit a chime when somebody uses them. You can learn more about how the Apple Watch listens in Lily Hay Newman’s report for WIRED.
The listening feature can also send alerts to your wrist when it detects important sounds like sirens, doorbells, and babies crying. Apple says the audio is not stored, the raw audio is inaccessible even by Apple, and that the transcriptions do not identify the people talking.
There are new ceramic cases and color options for the Series 12 Watch, including gray, black, light gold, and bronze. The Apple Watch Series 12 is $399. The Apple Watch Ultra 4 is $799.
For more about the Apple Watch updates, read Boutayna Chokrane’s WIRED story about all the details.
AirPods 5
Apple’s new, cheaper AirPods 5 come with some of the features that the AirPods 4 had. The AirPods 5 come with noise canceling and adaptive sound controls. You can also use Siri AI directly on the AirPods and communicate via chat. They also have live language translation, though it’s not clear how well that will function out in the real world—of course, it works great in Apple’s demo videos.
The base model costs $129. There’s also a version with touch volume controls on the stems, a little more battery, and a wireless case-charging puck that also can charge your Apple Watch. Those nicer options cost $149.
Some rumors had predicted that Apple would show off a new pair of AirPods with cameras in the earbuds. Those are possibly still coming eventually, but Apple didn’t say anything about them this time. We’re expecting at least one more Apple event before the end of the year, and they may show up then.
The post Everything Apple Announced: iPhone Duo, iPhone 18 Pro, Apple Watch, AirPods 5 appeared first on Wired.
