Apple's new CEO calls the iPhone the best AI device
John Ternus frames on-device Apple Intelligence as a privacy edge, as the foldable iPhone Duo arrives at a €2,299 starting price.
Symbolic image: a robotic arm folds and unfolds a hinged handset in a test rig while status lamps blink and a thermal feed runs on the monitor.
Apple's new chief executive John Ternus argues the iPhone is already the best AI device because Apple Intelligence runs on the phone itself whenever it can, instead of in the cloud.
At a glance
- John Ternus is Apple's new chief executive; Tim Cook moved to the role of executive chairman.
- Ternus describes the ideal AI device as an intelligent personal hub — and arrives at the iPhone.
- The foldable iPhone Duo starts at €2,299; the iPhone 18 Pro costs €1,449, up €150 from the previous model.
- A 7.6-inch inner display and a 5.4-inch outer screen; unlocking uses a fingerprint rather than Face ID.
- IDC forecast: foldables are about 2 percent of smartphone sales today; Apple could hold 44 percent of revenue in 2027.
Design an AI device from scratch, John Ternus told the audience at Apple's September 9, 2026 launch event, and you end up building something that already exists. His list of requirements was familiar: always at hand, a strong processor on the device itself, a link to the cloud, a large display, good cameras and microphones, long battery life. No product, he concluded, is better suited to be your intelligent personal hub than the iPhone.
The privacy argument
Ternus draws the line against rivals at the place where the computation happens. Trust only goes so far, he said, once your data is no longer yours to control — which is why Apple Intelligence runs on the device whenever it can. What Apple did not offer on stage was a number: how often that actually happens, and at what point a request leaves the phone for a server.
European buyers face an extra caveat. Several AI features are unavailable in the region on data protection grounds, and some premium capabilities sit behind a subscription. A new feature called Apple Reference Image stores an untouched sensor image so a photo can later be checked against AI fakes. The best-AI-device claim, in other words, does not land identically in every market.
The hardware underneath the claim
The same event brought Apple's first foldable, the iPhone Duo. Folded or open it is roughly passport-sized, with a 7.6-inch inner display and a 5.4-inch outer screen that covers about 90 percent of the iPhone 18 Pro's area.
Unlocking works by fingerprint rather than Face ID, optical zoom tops out at 2x, and the front camera sits beneath the inner display. It starts at €2,299, while the iPhone 18 Pro is €1,449 — €150 above its predecessor. Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold starts at €1,999. A standard-tier foldable is not expected before spring 2027.
How big the foldable market actually is
Research firm IDC puts foldables at roughly 2 percent of global smartphone sales so far, with Huawei leading the segment at about 50 percent. IDC expects Apple to reach 31 percent of foldable units within twelve months and 44 percent of segment revenue in 2027.
Those are projections, not counted sales. They describe what analysts think a late entrant with a very high entry price can achieve, not what buyers have already done.
What stays unverified
Nothing in the available reporting lets a reader test the central claim. No published figure shows what share of AI requests stays on the handset, and no side-by-side comparison with competing AI phones was presented. Settling the question would take traffic measurements, not keynote assertions.
FAQ
Who is Apple's new CEO?
John Ternus now leads Apple as chief executive. Tim Cook moved to the role of executive chairman and stays with the company.
How much does the foldable iPhone Duo cost?
It starts at €2,299. For comparison, the iPhone 18 Pro costs €1,449 and Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold starts at €1,999.
Does Apple Intelligence run on the device or in the cloud?
Apple says it computes on the device whenever it can and only reaches for the cloud when needed. The company has not published what share that covers.
