😬 New Apple CEO John Ternus has called previous foldable phones “cheap and crappy” against the new iPhone Duo
😲 A new Time interview notes he’s been involved in Apple’s foldable project since 2011
🤔 It was his relentlessness with its development that led Apple to bring it to market
💰 The Duo is up for pre-order today, with prices starting at $1,999 for a 256GB model
New Apple CEO John Ternus has called today’s foldable phones “cheap and crappy” against the iPhone Duo, which goes up for pre-order today.
In an interview with Time magazine after the Duo was named one of the best inventions of the year, Ternus noted he was involved in early foldable work at Apple back in 2011.
The Time article stated that “Ternus and five other engineers filed a patent application for foldable electronic devices, exploring what kind of batteries and circuit boards might be needed for such an idea”, before he himself stated that “It felt clear that we were going to eventually get to a place where OLED displays were going to be flexible”.
Ternus then stated he wasn’t a fan of the early attempts other firms made at foldables in the 2010s, calling them “kind of cheap and crappy”.
Apple’s VP of Product Design, Richard Dinh, highlighted Ternus’ insistence to push forward with Apple’s foldable project, even though other brands had beat them to market.
A key development for both men was a nanotexture display, which highlighted Ternus’ perseverance for Dinh. He notes that Ternus “gave us the confidence to really push the boundaries on innovation and manufacturing, and fly worldwide to connect our suppliers together and come up with the nanotexture.”
It proves that Apple almost works on a different plane to its rivals, as it’d rather bring the right product to market after an indeterminate period of time, rather than just be first.
The Time also notes that the new Apple CEO has spent a lot of time “obsessing over design” even to the point where he’s “spending multiple days a week in the studio with the industrial-design and human-interface teams.”
Ternus also addresses Apple Intelligence working with Google’s Gemini tech, a move it reportedly agreed to back in January. On that note, Ternus stated that Apple’s intention is to “make the things where we can really bring differentiation” to market, rather than releasing everything as its own product.
Likewise, with Siri AI, he said “you can leverage all that information to do things, learn things, and figure out things in a way that nobody else can do”, which gives it a unique advantage in his eyes.
As for the September event where the iPhone Duo was unveiled, Ternus also noted that he didn’t sleep much before the event, stating he was on “such a moment of adrenaline and caffeine and excitement for the day.”
The iPhone Duo is available to pre-order now, with prices starting at $,1999 for a 256GB model, and will begin shipping next week.
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Reece Bithrey is a journalist with bylines for Trusted Reviews, Digital Foundry, PC Gamer, TechRadar and more. He also has his own blog, UNTITLED, and graduated from the University of Leeds with a degree in International History and Politics in 2023.