Apple Prepares $2,500+ Foldable iPhone as New CEO Faces First Enormous Test

The Phone That Could Define John Ternus

Apple’s Foldable Gamble

Apple is preparing for one of the most consequential iPhone launches in years, with its long-awaited first foldable smartphone expected to take centre stage at the company’s September 9 event. Industry forecasts suggest the device could command an average selling price above $2,500, placing it in an extraordinary new category even by Apple’s premium standards.

The timing makes the launch even more important. John Ternus became Apple chief executive on September 1, succeeding Tim Cook after 15 years, meaning the expected foldable will become the first major iPhone moment of a new leadership era — and an immediate test of whether Apple can still arrive late to a technology category and then reshape it.

Apple Is Preparing to Enter a Market It Deliberately Avoided

Foldable smartphones are no longer experimental, but they remain surprisingly small compared with the wider phone market. Rival manufacturers have spent years trying to solve the fundamental compromises of folding displays: visible creases, thicker bodies, hinge durability, battery limitations and the question of whether consumers actually need a phone that unfolds into something closer to a small tablet.

Apple has watched rather than rushed. That is familiar territory for a company that rarely needs to be first if it believes it can eventually make an existing idea easier to use, easier to understand and far more commercially valuable.

Market research now expects Apple's arrival to dramatically accelerate the category. Counterpoint Research forecasts foldable smartphone shipments will pass 100 million cumulatively by the end of 2026 and estimates Apple could capture around a quarter of the global foldable market during its first, shortened year of sales.

That would be remarkable for a company entering a category years after several competitors established themselves.

The Price Could Be Almost as Important as the Phone

The biggest shock may be the cost. Exact pricing remains unconfirmed before Apple's event, but current industry estimates place the device firmly above conventional flagship iPhones.

IDC expects Apple's foldable devices to achieve an average selling price above $2,550 and forecasts more than 17 million foldable iPhones could be shipped by 2027. On that forecast, Apple could generate more than $45.7 billion from the category and account for roughly 40 per cent of worldwide foldable shipments.

That does not necessarily mean the entry model will start above $2,500. Different forecasts have placed the likely starting price closer to the $2,000–$2,500 range, while higher-storage configurations could push substantially beyond it.

The distinction matters. A $2,000 phone is expensive; a $2,500-plus phone starts competing psychologically with laptops, televisions, holidays and other major purchases.

Apple would therefore be testing something larger than demand for a folding display. It would be testing just how far consumers are willing to follow the iPhone upmarket.

Why Apple Could Still Pull It Off

There is one overwhelming advantage on Apple's side: scale.

The company said earlier this year that its installed base had surpassed 2.5 billion active devices. In its fiscal first quarter of 2026, Apple reported record quarterly revenue of $143.8 billion while iPhone revenue reached an all-time high.

That enormous ecosystem means Apple does not need to persuade the entire smartphone market to buy its foldable. It needs only a relatively small proportion of affluent existing customers to decide that this is the ultimate iPhone upgrade.

Foldables are particularly suited to that strategy because their volumes remain relatively small while their selling prices are exceptionally high. At a time when the wider smartphone market is contracting under pressure from higher component costs, premium devices can protect revenue even when manufacturers sell fewer units.

This may explain why Apple's foldable matters far beyond its immediate sales numbers. The device gives the company a new rung above the Pro Max rather than simply replacing another iPhone.

The Hardware Will Have to Justify the Premium

Price alone will not create a successful new category. The phone still has to solve the problems that have kept foldables from becoming mainstream.

One of the biggest is the crease running through the folding display. Research into the category repeatedly identifies the crease as a visible compromise, and expectations around Apple's device have increasingly centred on whether the company has found a way to make it dramatically less noticeable.

Durability will matter just as much. A conventional smartphone contains no hinge repeatedly opening and closing thousands of times over its life. Consumers spending more than $2,000 will expect Apple's version to feel finished rather than experimental.

The expected book-style design also creates an opportunity that ordinary iPhones cannot easily reproduce. Opened up, a much larger display could make multitasking, video, productivity and AI-assisted tasks significantly more useful while still folding into a pocketable device.

That is where Apple's broader ecosystem may become decisive. The real product is unlikely to be simply an iPhone with twice as much screen. Apple's challenge is making the additional space feel indispensable.

John Ternus Has Inherited the Moment Immediately

For Ternus, there is virtually no honeymoon period.

Apple formally announced in April that he would succeed Cook from September 1. Ternus had previously led Hardware Engineering, giving him unusually direct experience with the products he must now sell as chief executive.

Cook has not disappeared. He has moved into the role of executive chairman and Apple has said he will continue assisting with areas including engagement with policymakers around the world. That gives Ternus continuity while still placing ultimate operational responsibility in new hands.

His first major public challenge, however, is unusually symbolic. Apple is attempting to launch a genuinely different type of iPhone almost immediately after one of the most significant leadership changes in its history.

A successful launch would allow Ternus to begin his tenure with precisely the thing critics have increasingly demanded from Apple: a major new hardware idea capable of generating meaningful new revenue.

A disappointing one would strengthen the opposite argument — that an expensive folding iPhone is refinement rather than transformation.

The Bigger Test Is Artificial Intelligence

Hardware is only half the pressure facing Apple's new chief executive.

Apple enters the next phase of the smartphone industry while artificial intelligence is increasingly becoming the battleground that once belonged to cameras, processors and display quality. The question is no longer simply which company builds the best handset, but which device becomes the most useful gateway into increasingly powerful AI systems.

That makes a larger folding display potentially more strategically important than it first appears. A phone that can simultaneously display source material, AI-generated information and another application could make artificial intelligence more useful during everyday work rather than confining it to a chatbot window.

But Apple has to demonstrate that advantage. An expensive screen that folds is a novelty. A pocket-sized computer that meaningfully changes how people interact with AI, apps and information is a platform.

That difference could determine whether the foldable becomes another premium niche product or the beginning of a fundamental redesign of the iPhone.

Apple Is Entering at an Extraordinary Moment

The wider smartphone market makes Apple's gamble even more striking. IDC currently expects global smartphone shipments to suffer a record decline in 2026 as severe memory shortages increase manufacturing costs and force prices higher.

Foldables are one of the rare areas still expected to grow.

That creates an unusual opportunity. Apple is entering the most expensive part of the smartphone industry at precisely the moment when consumers are being forced to reconsider what phones should cost and manufacturers are searching for products capable of sustaining margins.

Huawei, Samsung, Xiaomi and others have already demonstrated that there is a market for increasingly ambitious folding devices. Apple's task is different: taking something that remains niche and convincing ordinary premium iPhone buyers that folding should eventually feel normal.

What Happens Next

Apple's September 9 event should provide the first definitive answers. Until the company announces the device itself, its name, price, specifications and availability remain expectations rather than confirmed Apple product details.

The first numbers after launch will matter enormously. Supply constraints could initially make raw sales difficult to interpret, meaning waiting lists, regional availability, customer reaction and subsequent production increases may provide better clues about genuine demand.

The deeper verdict will take longer. Apple does not need its first foldable to replace the conventional iPhone overnight; it needs the device to establish a new premium category capable of expanding through future generations.

Ternus therefore begins his time at the top with a rare opportunity and an equally large risk. Tim Cook inherited an Apple already transformed by the iPhone. John Ternus may now have to prove that Apple can transform the iPhone again.