Apple unveils first foldable iPhone

A similar size to your passport. It feels familiar to hold and comfortable to use with one hand. Its distinctive asymmetric shape with two rounded corners invites you to open it. The two sides connect into a continuous frame surrounding the largest iPhone display we've ever designed.

IPhone duo starts at $1,999, with storage capacities ranging from 256 gigabytes to 2 terabytes.

All right, two firsts for Apple today, its first foldable iPhone finally unveiled-- it feels like we've talked about it for years-- and the first product launch under Apple's new CEO. I couldn't be more proud of the teams across Apple who made today possible. So thank you for joining us. Have a great day.

Now, it's important to note these debuts come as Apple grapples with rising costs and tariffs and the intensifying and relentless AI race. I want to bring in Patrick McGee. He's a CBS News contributor and author of the New York Times best seller Apple in China. Patrick, OK, first impressions of this new product, this foldable iPhone? And I say we've been talking about it for years because there's been speculation that Apple is going to come out with this foldable phone to compete with some of the other big brands. So first impressions? I think it's ridiculously cool. What they're calling continuity is the feature where it looks like an ordinary iPhone, and then as you open it, it sort of unfolds into the very image you were looking at in an expanded way. That seems just to be as impressive as the hardware alone, which, of course, is the main thing that it hinges on, to use a little pun there. So I'm ridiculously impressed, in a certain sense. It's a marvel of industrial design and engineering. The real question is, are people going to pay $2,000 for this thing? And I don't think so. I think it's going to underwhelm.

OK, so it's ridiculously expensive, and whether or it's cool, but-- It's expensive. What it makes me think of is when Steve Jobs introduced the original iPad in 2010, and he basically made the argument that this was a new product category altogether, more portable than a desktop but bigger screen than an iPhone. And there was just something Intuitive about that. He didn't really have to push it. I think you just sort of got it. Is the iPhone Duo going to be like that? I mean, what does it really do that my iPad doesn't do better with a little attached keyboard? And that also sort of is going to replace my iPhone. I just don't see it really happening. I have to say, I thought I was going to buy one just because I'm a tech reporter. I need to be in the know. And now that I'm thinking about it practically on the budget that I have and so forth, I'm like, I don't think I'm going to buy it, and I don't think most people are. Maybe they'll bring people to the Apple store, but I think you're sacrificing some battery life, probably some durability, and cameras. You're not getting as good cameras as the 18 Pro. Yeah, interesting to see if we're going to see that in restaurants now. I always gauge on how popular something is if I'm actually seeing it out in the wild. But Apple known for its hardware, of course, but we're now in this heated AI race. It's been so interesting to watch Apple's movement on this because they, frankly, have been kind of taking a step back. They're not jumping in with both feet when it comes to AI. Are they waiting for the best to kind of reveal itself, and then they're going to invest in that? What do you think? I think they've sort of stumbled into a very good strategy. I mean, just as recently as 24 months ago, AI was not really a term that was even used in Apple keynotes, right? They would talk about machine learning, and they would talk about Apple Intelligence. But now they've really leaned in hard. When they did the Mac Studio and the Mac Mini, their new desktop computers, a few weeks ago, they used AI like ad nauseam, and that kept happening today as well. When I say they stumbled into a strategy, I mean, they are saving loads of money-- I mean literally hundreds of billions of dollars-- by not playing in the large-language-model race, wherein you build massive data centers to claim your territory. But instead, if you are paying Anthropic, if you are paying OpenAI, chances are Apple is taking 15% to 30% of every purchase you have. So there was an argument a decade ago or so that Apple had become the biggest gaming company in the world because most games are played on the iPhone, and they were making more revenue and profit than the likes of Nintendo. I think the same is probably true with AI as well. Do you think part of it, too, is that Siri was met with such mixed reviews and that kind of ended with a thud and that they don't want to make a mistake like that was again? That's a good question. I mean, they've so clearly blown the lead that Siri had. I mean, what was that, 2011? I think it was demonstrated just before the passing of Steve Jobs. And my God did they blow a lead. I mean, I only use Siri by accident. For years, it was the thing that would just be triggered when you didn't want it to be triggered. And now they're talking about Siri AI, which is really interesting. Now, basically, it's powered by Google technology, by Gemini technology. So you can sort of say they've capitulated. They've thrown in the towel but probably in a way that's actually smart because they're doing the savings. They're getting the savings, and yet they're still delivering a great product. And however much they might want to compete with Anthropic or OpenAI, they have proprietary knowledge, if you will, of all the apps that you're using. Siri can access things. It can leave its sandbox in a way that ChatGPT really can't do. So however late Apple is, they can still be the dark horse and sort of win this whole thing. Yeah, see how the two, between ChatGPT and Anthropic and Claude, see them duke it out and see who wins in the end, maybe. Yeah, as long as it's being done on an Apple device, then Apple is the winner. And Siri AI might be a little bit behind, but because they can access your messages and your emails in ways that the other competitors cannot and it lives on device rather than in the cloud, it means that they can be late and still pull this off. Before you go, I want to make sure that we ask you about Ternus. He's coming in. He has big shoes to fill with Tim Cook. Biggest challenges you think he's going to face here in these first couple of years as CEO? I don't know that he's really going to make his mark as a totally new CEO who's pushing Apple in a different direction. If we see that, that's probably post 2028, post 2029. Tim Cook is still there. He's the executive chairman. He's earning some $50 million a year with his stock rewards. So I kind of thing this is still kind of Tim Cook's company, and I don't know to what extent we're going to see a major shift in that direction. What I do like about John Ternus is I get the Jim from The Office vibes about him the way he sort of breaks the fourth wall and talks to the camera. He just seems like a normal dude in a way that I think Tim Cook has always come across as a Southern politician, not willing to say anything that might offend anyone and so forth. And John is, unfortunately, like an acolyte in certain ways, but I get the sense that there's more of like a realness factor to him. I just don't know when we're actually going to get to see it. All right, Patrick McGee, great to be with you. Thanks so much. Come back. We love having you on set.