Apple's first sky-high priced foldable phone has been scalped to as high as 90,000 yuan.

This is known to the outside world as Apple's "most important launch event in a decade".

Before Tim Cook stepped down from Apple, he left the foldable phone that had been polished internally for nearly a decade as a "legacy" for the new CEO's debut. The power handover, product form revolution, AI features, and response to capital expectations were all integrated into one launch event.

At 1 a.m. Beijing Time on September 10, inside the Steve Jobs Theater in the United States, Apple's new CEO John Ternus made his official debut: "25 years ago, when I first walked through this door, I never dreamed of a moment like today."

The biggest star of the launch event is none other than the iPhone Duo — Apple's first foldable screen, which has been fully "spoiled" in advance. This is Apple's first major change to the iPhone form since the iPhone X introduced the "notch screen" in 2017.

John Ternus is introducing the iPhone Duo. Source: Screenshot of Apple 2026 Autumn Launch Event

Of course, the price is also "revolutionary". The 256GB version of the Chinese mainland iPhone Duo is priced at 15,999 yuan, and the 2TB version will be as high as 26,499 yuan.

After the launch event, *China Entrepreneur* found on second-hand platforms that the iPhone Duo model had been speculated up to 90,000 yuan, and some were even priced at hundreds of thousands of yuan. Xianyu even officially announced on the eve of the launch event that it would launch the "Mobile Phone Festival" starting from September 10.

Counterpoint analysts told *China Entrepreneur* that the iPhone Duo is expected to capture 25% of the global foldable screen market share in its first year. IDC predicts that the first-year shipments of Apple's first foldable screen may reach 10 million units. This number has also put domestic mobile phone manufacturers on full alert.

Manufacturers such as Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo, and Honor have all squeezed their product launch plans into September, which is jokingly called "a gathering of radishes" by netizens. The Huawei Mate XT2 triple-foldable, Xiaomi 18 Fold wide-foldable and other models all "ran ahead" before Apple's launch event.

However, Chinese netizens have a more tepid reaction to the iPhone Duo and the new CEO. On the one hand, the foldable phone has completed market education in China, and the freshness brought by the iPhone Duo is insufficient. On the other hand, the high price also makes people hesitate, "Only the memory of Apple is made of gold." A highly-liked comment from netizens reads so.

The capital market is also not so optimistic about the popularity of foldable screens. In July, KeyBanc downgraded Apple to "underweight". As of August, 6 institutions had given "sell" ratings, tying the highest record since 2012.

On the day of the launch event, Apple's stock price fell slightly by 0.28%, with a market value of 4.6 trillion US dollars.

When A-share market opened on September 10, the foldable screen concept sector also fluctuated and fell. As of noon, liquid metal hinge concept stock Yian Technology fell 13.14%, Jingyan Technology fell 6.47%, Yashi Optoelectronics fell 4.91%, and Lansi Technology fell 3.33%.

Apple Enters the Foldable Screen Era

The theme of this launch event is "Surprise and Shine". In more than an hour, Apple released 6 new products covering the iPhone series, earphones and smart watches.

For nearly 20 years, the standard iPhone has been absent from the autumn launch event for the first time. And starting from this launch event, future standard iPhone models will be released at the spring launch event, and the autumn launch event will only release high-end series models.

The biggest highlight of the launch event is undoubtedly the new foldable phone. "Duo", which means "two" in Latin, refers to both the inner and outer dual screens, and the integration of iPhone and iPad.

This is not the first time Apple has named a product with Duo. In 1992, PowerBook Duo created the "one device for two uses" concept with "thin and light laptop + docking station", which is regarded by retro players as the first generation of MacBook Air. The MagSafe Duo released in 2020 can charge both iPhone and Apple Watch at the same time.

This time, the iPhone Duo adopts the horizontal inward-folding "wide fold" solution. When unfolded, the inner screen is 7.6 inches, about the size of a passport. The outer screen is 5.4 inches, the inner and outer screens have a unified display ratio, and both the front and back are made of ceramic crystal glass. In the unfolded state, it is the thinnest iPhone ever. The body is available in two colorways: Starlight White and Night Sky (Deep Blue).

One of the biggest highlights is the under-screen camera on the inner screen of the iPhone Duo, which is hidden under the 7.6-inch inner screen panel. When the screen is lit, it is a complete full-screen without any punch holes. This is also the first time Apple has adopted this technology on its flagship phone.

But the price Apple paid for this screen is: it canceled Face ID, switched to side-mounted fingerprint Touch ID, and removed the telephoto lens. The full imaging configuration of the top-tier 26,000-yuan model only includes: a 48-megapixel main camera plus a 48-megapixel fused ultra-wide-angle camera, supporting 4K Dolby Vision. An IDC analyst said bluntly that removing the telephoto lens on a phone priced above 2,000 US dollars "can be regarded as cutting corners".

The compensation Apple offers is algorithm: the new "Smart Capture" function can take photos automatically without manually pressing the shutter. It is worth noting that the Android camp launched the ZTE Axon 20 as the world's first phone with under-screen camera technology as early as 2020.

Second-hand Market Price Speculated Up to 90,000 Yuan

In terms of performance, Apple's first foldable phone has shown sincerity.

The biggest pain points of foldable screens are hinges and creases. The iPhone Duo adopts a variable torque hinge composed of more than 100 components, with an aerospace-grade titanium metal frame, nano-texture material and Apple's custom scratch-resistant coating.

At the same time, the iPhone Duo is equipped with the newly released full-spec A20 Pro chip, a large-size VC vapor chamber (vacuum chamber vapor chamber, which solves the heat generation problem under high load), and supports IP68 dust and water resistance.

Officials say the sustained performance of the iPhone Duo and iPhone 18 Pro series is 35% and 40% higher than that of the iPhone 17 Pro respectively. The battery life is up to 24 hours, the outer screen video playback lasts up to 44 hours, and 5 minutes of charging supports 5 hours of outer screen video playback.

Software is also a major challenge for foldable screens. The dock on the main screen of Duo is changed to a vertical layout, supporting two apps to operate on the same screen. In the half-folded state, it can instantly turn into a calendar, alarm clock or desktop speaker. Both the inner and outer screens support Apple Pencil — obviously, Apple wants to make it a "pocket iPad".

However, the pricing of the iPhone Duo may make many people hesitate. The 256GB version for Chinese mainland market is 15,999 yuan, the 512GB version is 17,999 yuan, the 1TB version is 21,499 yuan, and the 2TB version is 26,499 yuan. The model will be available for pre-order at 8 p.m. on October 16 and go on sale on October 23. It will be sold more than a month after the release, which once again repeats the iPhone X's script of "released at the same event, delayed for sale".

Source: Screenshot of inquiry on second-hand platform by *China Entrepreneur*

The iPhone 18 Pro series, which appeared on the same stage as the iPhone Duo, focuses purely on performance improvement.

The iPhone 18 Pro is also equipped with TSMC's 2nm process A20 Pro, with 2 new super cores that are 20% faster, and the GPU graphics performance is improved by 40%. As a result, the sustained performance of the iPhone 18 Pro is 40% higher than that of the iPhone 17 Pro, and the iPhone 18 Pro Max can achieve 45 hours of continuous video playback.

The iPhone 18 Pro series debuts the "smaller Dynamic Island": the punch hole width is reduced from 20.76mm to 13.49mm, and the area is reduced by about 35%. This is also the first "shrinking" of Dynamic Island since it was launched in 2022.

The improvement in imaging is one of the major highlights of the iPhone 18 Pro series. For the first time, its main camera supports variable aperture (10 levels of adjustment from f/1.4 to f/4.0), and a new image editing function Pro Controls is added, which is equivalent to a built-in "AI Meitu Xiuxiu" on the phone — although the Huawei Pura 80 Pro already had a similar solution for variable aperture long ago.

However, the more intuitive feeling of the market for Apple is "price increase". The iPhone 18 series has a general price increase of 100 US dollars, and the Chinese mainland version has a general price increase of 1,000 yuan, which makes the starting price of the Pro version reach 9,999 yuan.

Counterpoint analysts told *China Entrepreneur*: Although Apple "held on" for a while, "neither Apple nor Chinese brands can avoid the fate of price increase in the end." Omdia analysts also said that the simultaneous price increase of Android phones has narrowed the price gap with iPhones instead, "iPhones will be more competitive".

The New Engineer CEO, Can He Bring Surprises?

Another focus of the launch event is that the scepter of the Apple empire has been handed over to a 50-year-old leader.

In the Cook era, he was better at using mature products to harvest the largest commercial base, and Apple pursued full price range coverage and full category expansion. Relying on the concept of "supply chain and business operation first", Apple's market value has grown from about 350 billion US dollars to 4 trillion US dollars in the past 15 years, and its annual revenue has also increased by about 4 times.

However, the pursuit of conservative and steady pace has also made the accusations of "lack of innovation" and "incremental updates" accompany Cook throughout his career as CEO.

Entering the foldable screen battlefield, Apple still follows the standard playbook of the Cook era. Counterpoint analysts predict that the iPhone Duo will capture 25% of the global foldable screen market share in its first year. "It's not so much that Apple has snatched a lot of market share, it's better to say that it thanks Chinese brands for educating most consumers before it enters the market."

At the beginning of the launch event, Cook officially passed the baton. Source: Screenshot of Apple 2026 Autumn Launch Event

Some experts said that Cook brought Apple's "certainty" to the fullest, but also left an obvious lag window in the AI and new hardware tracks. To what extent can Ternus bring changes?

The new CEO's first launch event brought some changes and distinctions: AI was placed at the opening, the standard model release was moved out of the autumn schedule, only 6 new products were released throughout the event, and resources were concentrated on the high ground with the highest profit and the latest technology.

But his more important test question is how to come up with the next generation of truly leading innovation in the red ocean of stock mobile phone market.

Ternus designed head-mounted displays at a VR startup for 4 years in his early years, and joined Apple in 2001, 25 years ago. He once led the Mac self-developed chip transformation, AirPods and iPhone hardware. In 2021, he became Apple's youngest senior vice president, and the hardware line he was in charge of contributed about 80% of Apple's revenue.

In March this year, Ternus hosted the launch of MacBook Neo alone, with the A18 chip entering the notebook market for the first time, priced at 4,000 yuan, and shipments reached 1.1 million units in the first three weeks, exceeding the sum of MacBook Pro and Air.

Cook's evaluation of Ternus is "the mind of an engineer, the soul of an innovator". The anecdotes about him also have a strong engineer characteristic. He would appear in the supplier's workshop late at night, count the screw grooves with a magnifying glass. The supplier made 35 grooves, while Apple stipulated 25, and he insisted that the supplier change it back.

Before taking over, Ternus had a low profile in Silicon Valley, and was even quite controversial. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives publicly pointed out that he had no special experience in AI, and *The New York Times* also described him as "good at maintenance, not good at pioneering".

Chinese Mainland AI Is Delayed Again

In addition to foldable screens, the biggest structural change of the launch event is undoubtedly that AI was placed in front of hardware for the first time.

Ternus put forward Apple's future artificial intelligence solution, and named it "Intelligent Personal Hub". He said: In the future, iPhone will no longer be just a hardware entry, but an AI hub that schedules personal data, devices and services.

Ternus proposed that iPhone is the "Intelligent Personal Hub". Source: Screenshot of Apple 2026 Autumn Launch Event

However, judging from the entire launch event, the overall framework of Apple Intelligence is larger than the substance, and the deliverable features are limited.

The highlighted features of Apple Intelligence include support for 16 languages, spelling correction, photo consultation and more. Siri AI has been updated in June this year by Cook: it supports multi-round conversations, context understanding, cross-device synchronization of conversation history, and there is also an independent Siri App.

However, the progress of the Chinese mainland version of AI, which Chinese users are most concerned about, has been delayed again. In July, Apple Intelligence completed the filing and approval of the Cyberspace Administration of China, and Alibaba's Tongyi will be integrated into the Chinese mainland Apple Intelligence (Baidu's Wenxin will assist in visual and voice functions).

But the information from the launch event shows that the new