Inside Apple’s Biggest Gamble Yet: How New CEO John Ternus Used His First Keynote to Redefine What an iPhone Can Be

Apple’s CEO John Ternus has been in charge for less than two weeks. He has already done something that his predecessor never quite got to: he stood on a stage and announced a product that really surprised people.

At Apple’s annual fall event on Wednesday, Ternus showed off the iPhone Duo, a foldable smartphone that looks like a small iPad when opened flat. In the US, it starts at $1,999. It costs up to $3,200 in its most expensive form. It’s not enough to say that this is different from the usual black rectangle that most people carry in their pocket. Now that Steve Jobs has held an iPhone in front of the world for the first time in 2007, this is the biggest change to the phone since then.

Take a moment to think about this. Ternus worked for Apple for years in the hardware division before being named Tim Cook’s replacement earlier this year. This was something he knew about. He worked on it. That background information is important because it explains why the Duo doesn’t feel like a marketing exercise. It feels like it was made by someone who really thought about what a phone could do differently.

The Duo was “inspired by the iPad,” Ternus said, and it was made to avoid what he called the “feel of other foldables on the market”—devices that “feel like two phones stuck together.” It’s not clear if that criticism of Samsung and Huawei is fair. But Apple’s point seems to be clear: they weren’t the first, but they want to be the best.

The questions that analysts are asking aren’t mean, but they are direct. Dipanjan Chatterjee at Forrester said the Duo could turn into “a premium-priced ornament,” which means something that shows off wealth more than it changes behavior. It’s a good worry. Foldable smartphones only make up about 2% of all smartphones sold in the world right now. Even though Apple has joined the market, that number might only reach 4% in the next ten years. Those aren’t very good numbers for a business whose iPhone sales bring in more than half of its yearly income.

The Vision Pro comparison is another one that keeps coming up when people talk about this launch. Apple charged almost $3,700 for that headset, but not many people bought it. While the Duo costs less, it’s still not cheap enough for most people to buy. Carolina Milanesi, who was at the event on Wednesday, said that switching to a foldable does take some getting used to because of the software, muscle memory, and the way people use their phones all day, every day. That won’t change right away.

Even so, the Duo announcement makes it hard not to feel like something has changed. Ternus also gave more information about Siri AI, which Apple is marketing as a “intelligent personal hub.” It is planned that Siri will be able to search through a person’s messages, emails, and apps to find information and take action. Apple will not store or access any of this information. “Others see that data as something to collect and store,” Ternus replied. “Here, not even Apple can access what’s yours.” That line sounds a lot like a campaign slogan, and it was clearly meant to be one.

Ben Wood, an analyst at FDM, said that Ternus’s appointment as CEO was probably timed to happen at the same time as this launch. He said that at Apple, nothing happens without a plan. There may be some truth to that. When I saw Ternus on stage, I could easily see a business trying to introduce both a new face and a new product at the same time. Each one gave the other more credibility.

It’s too early to tell if the Duo will be the next Apple Watch, a niche product that still sells millions of units every year, or something stranger and harder to put into a single category. There’s no doubt that Ternus didn’t play it safe with his first big chance. Instead, he put his money on something. That doesn’t happen very often for a company like Apple.