Apple's Foldable iPhone and New CEO Signal a Company Rebooting Itself
Apple's first foldable phone and CEO transition to John Ternus mark its boldest product pivot in decades. With iPhone sales stalling and AI questions mounting, the September event could redefine what Apple means.
The Playbook Is Rewritten
Apple is about to do two things it has never done before: introduce a foldable iPhone and put a new CEO at the podium. Both moves land at once, and that coincidence is the story.
Tim Cook spent 15 years turning Apple into a $4.7 trillion cash engine. His successor, John Ternus, took the reins on September 1 and inherits a company whose core revenue source is running out of runway.
The numbers are blunt. Americans own roughly 158 million iPhones. That is more than half the adult population. Apple is no longer selling a phone to people who want one—it is selling a phone to people who already have one and see no reason to trade up. An affordability crunch makes that calculus even harder, with families cutting back on everything from groceries to gasoline.
A foldable phone changes the upgrade conversation entirely. It is not iteration; it is a new form factor. That is why Apple is calling the event “Surprise and Shine” rather than the usual measured rollout.
The AI Elephant in the Room
Wall Street has been honest about its frustration. Melissa Otto of S&P Global Visible Alpha put it plainly: Apple has not participated in the AI fever that has lifted competitors like Alphabet. Investors are asking where the company goes from here.
The answer may be sitting on a folding screen.
A foldable iPhone with larger displays is a natural vehicle for AI features—more screen real estate for generative tools, richer Siri interactions, productivity workflows that matter on a tablet-sized canvas folded into a pocket. Apple is expected to announce the iPhone 18 with enhanced Siri abilities at the same event, suggesting the two announcements are linked more than coincidence.
The timing is strategic. Apple entered AI later than rivals, and the market has punished it for the delay. This event is the company’s chance to reframe the question: not whether Apple is late to AI, but whether its hardware approach makes the AI experience fundamentally different—and therefore worth the premium.
Why Now, Why Foldable
Foldable phones remain niche in the United States, but they dominate in Asia, where Samsung and Huawei have been refining the category for years. That geographic split matters. Apple has historically waited until a form factor matures before entering. The timing now reflects urgency, not arrogance.
IDC projects foldables as the only smartphone segment growing in 2026, with total sales reaching 22.9 million units—a 13 percent jump Apple’s entry is expected to drive. Meanwhile, total smartphone shipments are forecast to tumble 16.7 percent, weighed down by memory chip shortages and sticker shock at the register.
The foldable iPhone is unlikely to undercut that pricing pressure. Reports suggest a starting price around $2,000, well above the $1,200 entry point for the current iPhone 17 Pro Max. Apple is betting that a new category creates a new buyer, not just a premium upgrade path for existing iPhone users.
Ternus’s First Test
John Ternus is not a conventional CEO profile. He joined Apple’s product design team in 2001 and built his career on hardware engineering—the unglamorous work of making devices durable, manufacturable, and materially innovative. He helped bring the iPad and AirPods to life and led development of Apple’s recycled aluminum compound.
Patrick McGee, author of “Apple in China,” captured the tension this creates. Ternus is deeply involved in how products are made, not just how they look. That is valuable. It is also a risk if consumers are waiting for a product visionary to restore the pizazz that defined the Steve Jobs era.
This event is Ternus’s opportunity to prove both are possible. A foldable iPhone is a hardware statement. Enhanced AI capabilities through Siri are a software statement. Together they signal a CEO who understands manufacturing and user experience without abandoning the product drama Apple’s fan base expects.
Who Wins, Who Loses
Samsung wins by default if Apple’s foldable fails to gain traction—it remains the category leader by definition. But if Apple enters and shifts the market, Samsung faces the same upgrade-pressure problem Apple had, just from a different angle.
Huawei gains if Apple’s pricing keeps the foldable iPhone out of reach for most Chinese consumers, leaving the mid-tier foldable market open.
Apple wins if the foldable iPhone converts non-upgraders and resets the narrative around AI. It loses if the device feels incremental, or if investors conclude Ternus cannot match Cook’s financial discipline while taking product risks.
What Happens Next
The event starts at 1 p.m. ET on September 9 at Apple’s Cupertino headquarters. Devices typically ship a few days later, meaning a rapid path from announcement to revenue.
The broader test arrives in the quarters following. Can Apple sustain the foldable iPhone’s launch momentum? Will enhanced Siri and AI features close the gap with competitors in the market’s eyes? And can Ternus build a leadership identity that is distinctly his own, rather than a custodian of Cook’s legacy?
The answers will determine whether this event is a pivot or a pause. Given the headwinds facing the entire smartphone industry, Apple’s margin for error is smaller than it has been in a decade. The foldable iPhone and the new CEO are not separate announcements. They are a single statement: Apple is trying something new because the old strategy is running out of road.