Eight days after replacing Tim Cook as Apple’s CEO, John Ternus would hold his first product keynote as Apple’s CEO at the Surprise and Shine event on September 9, where Apple announced a slew of new hardware and software, headlined by the foldable iPhone Duo, the iPhone 18 series and a new crop of Apple Intelligence features.

There has been much ado about the products’ specifications, pricing, pre-orders and other market details. But, as is our wont, The Grid takes a look at some of the bigger stories behind Apple’s biggest product showcase of the year.

Apple Finally Folded, But Will It Matter? 

The iPhone Duo was the biggest announcement of the night, and rightly so: it is the company’s first foldable iPhone, one John Ternus calls the most transformational change to the iPhone since the original model launched in 2007.

It is a daring change in direction, alright, one that comes some eight years after foldable phones effectively took off, with Samsung and Huawei among the companies pushing the category forward from 2018 to now, when we have much improved models like Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8, launched in August.

Thanks to Apple’s second-mover advantage, it finally has a response, and then some, to Samsung’s “let us know when it folds” dare. But is it a well-timed one?

Let us know it when it folds. 💁‍♀️

— Samsung Mobile US (@SamsungMobileUS) September 7, 2022

Because for all the excitement around Apple’s entry, foldables remain a relatively unpopular corner of the smartphone market, according to multiple reports. Apple might already have an edge for coming on this late, but this is still a huge bet, one that could have a significant bearing on the company’s new chapter.

What Happened to the iPhone 18?

The iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max were among the first major products shown to the audience at the Surprise and Shine event. But there was an unusual absence: the series’ base model, the iPhone 18.

Contrary to how Apple has approached the iPhone lineup since 2019, the company did not announce the standard model alongside its Pro versions, and it offered no immediate explanation for the change.

That has naturally sparked speculation from various quarters, but in the unlikely event that Apple has decided against releasing a standard iPhone 18 altogether, there is a chance the device, alongside a couple of other iPhone models, could instead arrive in spring 2027, as Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has previously reported.

It could also be a reason as simple as the fact that Apple decided to keep the spotlight focused on the best of the series and its flagship flip model, the iPhone Duo. 

Is Apple Betting on AI Companionship?

AI-powered features are now one of the major expectations of any new consumer technology, and Apple’s latest watches are no exception, with Live Rewind, Siri Recap, and Audio Intelligence all leaning into them. 

Audio Intelligence is perhaps the most notable wearable feature anyone has seen in a minute, given its assistive potential for deaf or hearing-impaired persons. Meanwhile, Live Rewind’s main allure lies in its ability to go back as far as 15 seconds to bring context to something that was just said. You can imagine the legal and privacy concerns that’ll trail this once it becomes a common feature for users.

For Siri Recap, think of it as similar to the AI Friend wearable. Though it’s not a listener by default, it does use ambient listening to take “high-level Apple Intelligence-generated notes so you can stay present in the moment and catch up later.”

Interestingly, it’s not designed to produce recordings or transcripts, as its data is “isolated in hardware so that it is inaccessible to the user, the operating system, apps, and even Apple,” for user privacy. This all the more makes you wonder if Apple really went ahead with the feature for the benefit of its consumers, or solely out of fear of missing out on the AI companionship track.