The top-spec model is priced at 26,000 yuan. Apple's foldable iPhone is officially launched, which is the first to be equipped with an under-display camera and industry-leading 2nm flagship chip, and Tim Cook completes the handover of duties on site.

Zhidx Report, September 10: In the early hours of today, the first new product launch event under Apple's new CEO has finally arrived: the iPhone Duo foldable, iPhone 18 Pro, AirPods 5 and the new Apple Watch series all made their scheduled appearances.

In the opening video, our old friend Tim Cook showed up briefly, and he said: "No no no, it's not me, it's the guy behind me." Right after the words, the camera panned to Apple's new CEO John Ternus.

There was no "Good Morning" today, only "Welcome to Apple Park".

The most anticipated new product is undoubtedly the foldable device: the iPhone Duo, priced starting at 15,999 yuan, Apple's first foldable phone, a heavyweight new product that was rumored to be in development for 10 years and strongly promoted by Cook and Ternus, which appeared as the One More Thing segment.

The crease is barely visible when the screen is fully unfolded:

The visual transition animation when the screen unfolds is extremely stunning:

These two details, one on the hardware side and one on the software side, are very "Apple".

Of course, Apple's first under-display camera, the world's first IP68 dust and water resistant "large foldable", a precision hinge that enables zero-gap opening and closing with more than 100 components, and significant design adjustments for apps adapted to foldable screens, there are plenty more highlights of the iPhone Duo.

But overall, the iPhone Duo does not bring too many surprises in terms of screen aspect ratio, hardware design philosophy, software interaction methods, and large-screen application gameplay. It can be understood as a product that achieves "perfection" in several points Apple considers important based on the existing foldable phone logic.

With a starting price of 15,999 yuan and a top-tier configuration price of 26,499 yuan, it is not cheap, and it is "the most expensive iPhone in history", but the price is basically within expectations, and its starting price is roughly equal to the top-tier models of large foldable phones from Xiaomi and Huawei.

Apart from the iPhone Duo, other new products seem a bit "unremarkable". The iPhone 18 Pro is almost "identical in shape" to its predecessor, the Dynamic Island cutout in the middle of the screen is smaller, it can display three live activities at the same time, and the AirDrop speed is increased by 80%. Of course, the 2nm A20 Pro is the most core upgrade.

Apple calls the A20 Pro "the ultimate chip for running advanced on-device models". The chip integrates a 6-core CPU, a 7-core GPU, and dual 16-core Neural Engines, doubling AI processing power, and its memory bandwidth is 50% higher than that of the A19 Pro.

The AirPods 5 is equivalent to the AirPods 4 with active noise cancellation added; the upgrades of the Apple Watch are still focused on health, sports and AI, for example, the heart rate monitoring frequency is increased by 60 times.

Throughout the entire launch event, AI was the core that Apple emphasized, but Apple Intelligence is still an update "exclusive to regions outside mainland China", so all AI-related upgrades feel "lacking in tangible sense".

In terms of price and release date:

The iPhone 18 Pro is priced starting at 9,999 yuan, the iPhone 18 Pro Max is priced starting at 10,999 yuan, pre-orders open at 20:00 on September 12, and the devices go on sale on September 18.

The iPhone Duo is priced starting at 15,999 yuan, pre-orders open at 20:00 on October 16, and the device goes on sale on October 23.

The Apple Watch Series 12 series is priced starting at 2,999 yuan, pre-orders open at 9:00 on the morning of September 11, and the devices go on sale on September 18.

01.

iPhone "Duo" adds an extra screen

Eliminating creases, debuting the under-display camera

The foldable iPhone Duo, the undisputed protagonist today, what details are worth exploring?

When introducing the foldable phone, Ternus started by complaining about the designs of peers, saying that some foldable phones look like two phones glued together, and there are large black borders when watching movies, the screen is larger in name but the viewing experience feels smaller.

Who is Apple referring to? In fact, all early Android foldable phones were designed this way, but today, in the wider "large foldable" segment, Apple is indeed a "latecomer".

Huawei, Samsung, and Xiaomi have all released "large foldable" devices, and Huawei released the Pura X as early as March 2025. In terms of aspect ratio, all large foldables unexceptionally adopt a ratio of approximately 1.4:1, that is √2:1, which is close to the proportion of a book, and the Apple iPhone Duo follows the same design.

Some netizens also teased, bringing up the Microsoft Surface Duo dual-screen foldable phone released back in September 2020, claiming that "Microsoft's efforts made Apple's glory possible". But in the words of Lei Jun, "That's definitely just messing around."

▲ Microsoft Surface Duo

Of course, even though they are all large foldables, there are still differences.

For example, the inner screen of the Apple iPhone Duo has no cutout at all, Apple has finally launched the under-display camera technology it has developed for many years, debuting it on the foldable phone.

After unfolding, a 7.6-inch large screen with no cutouts and an almost invisible crease is really pleasant, and the user experience is very good.

However, Apple did not go into detail about the technical specifics of the under-display camera.

Although the inner screen has no cutouts, the cutout on the outer screen of the iPhone Duo is quite large, which still looks a bit "noticeable".

In terms of the core hinge of the foldable phone, this Apple hinge is said to have more than 100 components, and it is also calibrated and aligned with AI. From the photos, its structure is very similar to that of the Xiaomi 18 Fold, and it can basically be regarded as a "waterdrop-like" hinge.

▲ iPhone Duo hinge

▲ Xiaomi 18 Fold hinge

The "click" sound when a foldable phone closes is not rare, but Apple even made a "click" sound at the moment when the phone is fully unfolded, which has to be said, is very Apple. The ultimate pursuit of precision industrial design is fully demonstrated here.

From now on, you can even "identify the phone by its sound".

What's more extreme is the crease. According to real machine shots, this crease is almost non-existent, not "shallow" in the traditional sense, but at a level that you can barely see even if you look carefully.

I can believe that Apple spent 10 years just focusing on this single crease.

To be fair, the Apple iPhone Duo supports an IP68 dust and water resistance rating, which is at the same level as the straight-screen flagship phones, and this surpasses the large foldable phones of Huawei, Xiaomi and Samsung: Huawei and Xiaomi are IP58 + IP59, and Samsung is IP48.

Apple's process precision and its obsession with these ultimate details are indeed stronger.

Apple says its unfolded iPhone is the thinnest iPhone ever, with an official website thickness of 5.2 mm, which is thicker than the 5.02 mm of the Xiaomi 18 Fold. The unlocking method has indeed been changed to side fingerprint recognition.

In terms of hardware architecture design, the person in charge of the explanation this time is Johny Srouji, who was basically Apple's exclusive lecturer for chips in the past, and is also Apple's top leader in the chip field.

Apple has put a lot of effort into this inner screen, such as the nano-texture layer, multi-layer design that balances flatness and durability, eliminating creases through 3D printing of 25 layers of custom photosensitive polymer micro-layers.