Turnus answers everything, the tech-savvy Apple CEO is back

Not long ago, John Ternus just wrapped up his first autumn new product launch event after taking over as Apple CEO. At this highly anticipated debut, Apple unveiled its long-in-the-making foldable smartphone iPhone Duo, the iPhone 18 Pro / Pro Max that features a variable aperture technology for the first time, as well as the brand-new next-generation Apple Watch series. 

After the launch event, Ternus sat down with Greg Joswiak (known as Joz), Apple's Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, for a joint exclusive interview with Tom's Guide and TechRadar. Faced with all kinds of sharp questions from reporters, the new leader with a hardware engineering background addressed every key point the public cared about directly: 

Why did it take nearly a decade to launch a foldable screen? Why is the iPhone still the irreplaceable hub for AI? How does Apple uphold its privacy bottom line amid peers' heavy bets on AI glasses? 

Foldable iPhone that "never ships half-baked products"

Foldable smartphones have been on the market for almost a decade. In response to the question of "why Apple waited until now to enter the market", Ternus gave a straightforward answer: Apple will only launch a product when its concept truly meets the company's thresholds for quality, durability and industrial design. 

Photo credit | The Verge 

Joz added beside him: "Apple has never had the habit of rushing half-baked products to the market for hype". In their view, most foldable screen solutions on the market have three long-standing pain points that have not been completely resolved for years: creases and cheap plastic feel, bulky body proportions when unfolded, and lazy software practices that simply stretch the phone interface roughly. 

To eliminate the loose, wrinkled plastic feel on the inner screen, Apple put tremendous effort into the hardware stack. In addition to pursuing a smooth transition when unfolding through the hinge structure, Duo also added ultra-thin glass on both sides of the flexible OLED screen to enhance rigidity and flatness. On the outermost polymer surface, Apple reconstructed and ported the well-received nano-texture technology that was previously used on iPad and Mac. 

According to Ternus, this new process completely eliminates the wavy reflective undulations common on previous foldable screens, delivering a smooth and comfortable hand feel. Ternus recalled that when the team handed him the first engineering prototype, his first reaction was: "Yes, this is it." 

In terms of body form factor, Apple also deliberately avoided the common "square box" design on the market. Joz joked that many competing products on the market look more like two phones crudely "glued" together, which are bulky and square when unfolded, and are not suitable for one-handed holding at all. 

Photo credit | Apple 

iPhone Duo adopts an aspect ratio closer to that of a passport, and the inner and outer screens maintain the same proportion. When unfolded, it becomes a slender, comfortable large canvas. 

This choice of proportion also inspired the software team to reshape the interaction. Faced with the large unfolded canvas, one-handed operation is often the most frustrating part. Apple's solution is to uniformly gather core controls to the right side of the screen: when holding the phone with one hand in folded state, the buttons are right next to the thumb; after unfolding the screen, commonly used operations are still within the natural reach of the right thumb. The equal scaling brought by the consistent proportion of the inner and outer screens makes the transition between the two screens almost seamless. 

The more underlying advantage comes from Apple's accumulation in the iPad ecosystem over the past decade. Joz pointed out sharply that many competing tablets are more like "enlarged phones" in terms of experience, while Apple has built the software experience around the independent large canvas from the very beginning. 

Therefore, third-party developers do not need to start from scratch. The two-column layout of Slack and the hover playback feature of Netflix demonstrated at the launch event are perfect examples of leveraging mature experience. 

Photo credit | Petr Mára 

You may still remember the iconic scene when Steve Jobs publicly dismissed styluses on stage at the original iPhone launch: the line "Who wants a stylus?" made the whole audience laugh. Since then, "iPhone will never use a stylus" has become the default unspoken rule for many people. 

Nearly two decades later, the iPhone that supports Apple Pencil has finally arrived. 

In response to the reporter's question of "whether this breaks the rule", Ternus gave a straightforward answer: he never thought it was a rigid rule. When the iPad was first launched, it did not come with a stylus either, and pure touch has proven its efficiency; but when facing such a large open canvas after unfolding, the stylus can indeed do things that fingers cannot. 

I never thought this was an unbreakable rule... On a larger screen, the stylus can do truly powerful and capable things. The iPhone Duo is perfectly usable without a pen, but adding it makes the experience much more fun. 

In Joz's view, equipping the iPhone with a stylus is not about overthrowing the past, but respecting the independent nature of the unfolded state: folded, it is the familiar iPhone you know; unfolded, it is a whole new open world, and Apple Pencil is made for that new world. 

As for the high entry price starting at 15999 yuan, Ternus admitted that this is a high-end device with high engineering complexity and solid craftsmanship, at this stage it is more suitable for early adopters who are willing to pay for the foldable screen experience, while the bar-shaped iPhone 18 Pro is still the main choice for most people. 

For this generation of Pro, Apple is not just selling "faster performance"

On the regular flagship line iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, the most notable hardware breakthrough is the addition of the mechanical variable aperture lens. For ordinary consumers who are not familiar with optical parameters, what exactly can a variable aperture bring? 

Ternus broke it down with two most common daily scenarios: in low-light or night environments, six tiny mechanical blades will automatically open to get more light intake, resulting in a cleaner image; when taking group photos at gatherings, the aperture will automatically shrink, expanding the depth of field to keep the faces of friends in the front and back rows sharp and clear. 

Photo credit | Apple 

For ordinary users, all of this is automatically done by the system algorithm the moment the shutter is pressed; while for photography enthusiasts and professional users, Apple has finally given back the control that was previously handled by computational photography in the background, supporting in-depth manual adjustment of aperture, shutter and even focus. 

In response to concerns about drop resistance brought by extra precision moving parts, Ternus said the engineering team conducted in-depth screening for the stiffness and strength of special alloys, coupled with rigorous drop and vibration tests, to ensure long-term reliability after years of use. 

When the reporter asked whether the aperture is assembled by humans or robots, Ternus playfully kept it a secret: "We'll just keep that to ourselves." 

As for the first 2-nanometer chip A20 Pro on a smartphone, official data shows that its graphics and sustained performance are both about 40% higher year-on-year, and a vapor chamber is added inside the body; in terms of battery life, the rated performance of the smaller 18 Pro even surpasses that of the previous generation 17 Pro Max. 

Joz emphasized that the high resale value of iPhone in the second-hand market is fundamentally due to solid hardware materials and performance headroom: 

You want it to be fast today, and still be fast three or four years later. The A20 Pro is a monster that will stay fast for many years. 

In the AI era, Apple still bets on the iPhone

During the interview, facing the industry's craze for various wearables such as AI Pin and smart glasses, Ternus clearly put forward the concept of "intelligent personal hub". In his view, the outside world is always hyping alternatives for the "post-phone era", but the reality is that the smartphone is still the irreplaceable best terminal carrier. 

Photo credit | Humane AI Pin 

His logic is that smartphones have solid battery life, abundant on-device computing power, and more importantly, a screen that you carry with you. When humans receive and process information, the throughput efficiency of the visual channel is far higher than that of passive hearing. 

Having a large screen that can fit in your pocket at any time is of immeasurable value. More crucially, it is about privacy control: all core personal data assets are stored in the phone fully controlled by the user, and Apple has no right nor any intention to snoop on them. 

Apple Watch and AirPods are excellent sensory extensions, but the iPhone is the unshakable hub. 

When talking about the boundary between AI and privacy, the interview directly addressed the public controversy over the "peeping" risk of some wearable products. Joz said bluntly that some labels are nothing more than marketing rhetoric, and Apple has a completely different bottom line when designing AI features. 

Take the new audio intelligence feature Siri Recap on Apple Watch as an example: the watch is equipped with a new chip with a hardware exclave, and the ambient audio only stays briefly at the moment when it is parsed in real time by the algorithm to generate high-dimensional notes, and is then completely erased from the memory immediately. 

The system does not record audio, does not save text transcriptions, does not identify speaker identities, and even the owner cannot access the original recording. 

Photo credit | The "Conversation Recap" feature on Apple Watch (Source: Apple) 

If we don't store the recording ourselves, it means no hacker or organization can get it. It cannot be hacked, nor can it be ordered to be handed over. 

From Apple's perspective, AI should help users step back and focus on the present during meetings